


Puzzle Pieces

by EmilyNorth



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-04-12
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:00:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 47,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23619391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmilyNorth/pseuds/EmilyNorth
Summary: All Blaise wanted was some Transfiguration tutoring. What he got instead was a whole new world.Originally written for the 2004 IATQO Secret Santa Challenge.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Blaise Zabini, Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy/Blaise Zabini
Comments: 20
Kudos: 97





	Puzzle Pieces

**Author's Note:**

> Author’s Note 1: This was written for the It’s Always the Quiet Ones Secret Santa Challenge waaaay back in 2004. (The story was originally posted at https://qo-ficexchange.livejournal.com/16629.html The challenger was Kyra, whose criteria are posted at the bottom of the story.) This was before Half-Blood Prince and long before Deathly Hallows, so there are lots of non-canon elements here just because I didn’t know better back then. (No lie, we weren’t even sure Blaise was _male_ at first—all we knew was the name, so some fics had him as a girl.)
> 
> Author’s Note 2: All of the magical theory used in this fic is, as far as I know, completely my own creation. I’m the overly analytical type who likes to figure out _why_ things work, and this is the best explanation for magic I was able to come up with. If anyone spots anything that seems to directly contradict canon, let me know and I’ll look into changing it, but please, be gentle when it comes to the liberties I took with potions and arithmancy. The potions theory is pure hogwash from someone with _no_ scientific background while the arithmancy is garbled nonsense pickpocketed, in part, from the MBA statistics class that I was stressing over back when I wrote this. Thanks for your patience! 
> 
> Warnings: Fairly explicit slash and threesome sex. The story ends up with Draco, Blaise, and Hermione very thoroughly (and explicitly) together, but it starts off with a strong, very intimate Draco/Blaise relationship. If that bothers you, stop now while you still have the chance.

Chapter 1

“Lepus florens,” I stated, waving my wand in a perfect circle. My pronunciation was perfect. My wand movement was flawless. My magic was focused. Nothing happened. I regarded the rabbit. The rabbit regarded me.

“Lepus florens,” I repeated, making the same, perfect wand motion. The rabbit ignored me in favor of nibbling on some lettuce I had left for him. He didn’t even bother _looking_ at me. It was humiliating. What kind of Slytherin couldn’t even intimidate a rabbit? When I first captured him, he had been trembling with fear, but he had calmed down considerably since I started working on the spell. Why shouldn’t he? I had been pointing a stick at him and repeating the same words for near on half an hour, with no visible results. Little wonder that he found lettuce more compelling than me.

“Lepus florens!” I forced out through clenched teeth, my white-knuckled hand not shaking in the slightest as I made another perfect circle. The rabbit responded by defecating on my desk. Damn rabbit.

“Marvelous job, Zabini,” a familiar voice drawled from the couches. “You certainly have a way with dumb animals.”

Growling in frustration, I hurled my wand in his direction. He caught it nonchalantly, without even looking up from his book. Show off. “You’d do better to throw it at the rabbit,” Draco stated calmly, twirling my wand between his fingers. “If you can’t transfigure it, you might as well knock it out. At least if it’s unconscious, it won’t shit on the desks.”

I fought the urge to chuck the rabbit at him as well and see if his seeker reflexes could protect him from _that_. He had no right to act so smug, just because he had been able to transfigure his rabbit into the rabbit’s foot flowering plant the day it was assigned. He knew I had always had trouble with Transfiguration. One of the happiest days of my life was when Snape told me in my career counseling session that my chosen career in international magical commerce did _not_ require N.E.W.T. level Transfiguration. I was delighted to leave McGonagall and all her wretched lessons behind, never dreaming that I would even have to think about them ever again. 

Then came Snape’s announcement at the beginning of seventh year N.E.W.T. level potions that knocked me so totally off my arse. All the professors blathered on in their opening term speeches about how seventh year was when we would learn how all the disciplines were intermingled, but I hadn’t expected such nonsense from my favorite professor who had always stood firm in his disdain of the more wand-centric forms of magic. That was the whole reason I was taking the class up to the N.E.W.T. level, once I had been informed that regardless of our chosen fields, all seventh-year students were required to take at least one class in practical magic. Alas, how sorely was I betrayed! Snape informed us that part of our final training as wizards would be to find and prepare our own ingredients. Some ingredients, used for the most delicate of potions, were so sensitive that they responded to the magic of the wizard who prepared them. If anyone other than the wizard brewing the potion so much as handled them before they were added, the potion could be ruined. 

We would therefore, he told us, spend the year learning how to grow or catch or extract ingredients commonly used in potions and prepare them to the necessary specifications. I hadn’t thought much of it at the time. Herbology had always been one of my better subjects, and thanks to my brother-in-law Giovanni’s obsession with exotic animals, I had always done fairly well in Care of Magical Creatures. For the first few weeks of term, I actually found myself enjoying learning about the ingredients, especially when we were ordered to capture and dissect several large, furry spiders. I imagine that a hundred years from now, I’ll still be able to manage a chuckle when I think of Weasley’s face that day in class. 

The other shoe dropped last Friday when Snape informed us that we had a week to prepare the necessary ingredients for a complicated luck potion. One of the essential ingredients was dried leaves from a rabbit’s foot flowering plant. Rabbit’s foot flowering plants don’t grow in nature. The only way to get one was to transfigure a rabbit. Capturing the rabbit was no problem at all. Transfiguring the rabbit was going to be the death of me, and if all Draco could do was mock me while being utterly unhelpful, then he deserved a rabbit in the face.

“If you’re in the mood for dispensing advice,” I hissed in a low voice, barely reigning in my temper, “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to actually _help_ me with the spell?”

Draco gave a short bark of laughter that made me smile in spite of myself. He laughed so rarely. And he looked so beautiful when he laughed. “Not a chance,” he replied, amusement coloring his voice. “I like my dangly bits just as they are, thanks just the same. I learned my lesson last time I tried tutoring you in Transfiguration.”

Blushing slightly, I looked away. Curse him. He _knew_ I still got embarrassed whenever I was reminded of that study session, which he had done regularly ever since it occurred _back in fifth year_. Salazar only knows why he felt the need to bring it up so often. In theory, it should have been just as embarrassing a memory for him as it was for me. I was horrified to remember that my temper had gotten away with me to such an extent that I hexed my best friend and lover but he _was_ a nationally ranked duelist for our age bracket, and should have been able to defend himself from being hexed with boils on his balls. 

Of course, he always did say that he had no defenses against me. Perhaps it was true. I certainly had no defenses against him. Especially not when he slipped up behind me and started rubbing my shoulders in a maddeningly seductive way while I continued to stare at the stubbornly non-transfigured rabbit. 

“You’ll get it eventually,” he murmured soothingly. “You always do.”

“But I don’t have time to spend weeks working this one out,” I argued half-heartedly. “You know I need this done by Friday, or Snape will have my head.”

“I’ll protect you.” His hands grew more adventurous, tugging my tie out of the way and unfastening my collar to caress the skin of my throat. “You know I’d never let anyone hurt you.”

“Easy for you to say,” I grumbled, trying to sound put out. If he thought I was genuinely upset, he’d work that much harder to ‘lighten’ my spirits. “You transfigured your rabbit days ago and won’t even show me how.”

The husky chuckle I got in response meant that my act wasn’t working, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to mind as his lips replaced his hands on the sensitive skin of my neck while his hands moved down to the buttons on my shirt. “It’s in your own best interests, love,” he insisted. “I know how you hate being cut off while I heal from your violence against me.”

I snorted. “Madam Pomfrey had you healed within an hour. You cut me off to pout over being bested in a duel.”

Another chuckle that sent shivers down my spine as I felt his chest vibrate against my back. “What can I say?” he asked rhetorically, one hand leaving my buttons to rub against my crotch. “I like to win.”

In spite of myself, my eyes slid closed while I moaned softly. It felt so good whenever he touched me, _where_ ever he touched me. “Is it safe?” I gasped, forcing myself to take precaution before I lost my mind over his touch.

He nipped my neck sharply, making me gasp. “Safe as houses. The charm turned green...” Draco’s voice trailed off as I reached behind me, tracing my hand up his thigh to gently cup his own erection. 

Ah, the charm. One of my more brilliant ideas, if I do say so myself, designed for situations just like this one, where Draco and I found ourselves alone in the common room. Time spent in the Slytherin common room was determined solely by rank. First through third years were never allowed in the common room at all after dinner. Fourth and fifth years were allowed until nine o’clock. Sixth years stuck around until eleven. By midnight, anyone below seventh year who was found in the common room did not have long to wait before learning the consequences of trespassing. Draco and I were both night owls and had the tendency to outlast most of our fellow seventh years, leaving us in sole possession of the common room shortly after midnight. We could do pretty much anything we chose in the relative privacy, but Draco was a paranoid bastard, and insisted upon extra security measures. 

“…right as your rabbit shat on the desk,” Draco concluded, the smirk clearly evident in his voice, almost completely disguising the slight breathlessness from my touch as my thumb circled the head of his cock through the material of his pants.

He was also a _snarky_ bastard and I had already taken about as much ribbing as I was prepared to handle about that thrice-damned, spawn-of-darkness rabbit. Turning sharply, I faced him, pulling my hand away from his groin to fist both hands in his hair, yanking his mouth to mine. If he couldn’t find better use for his mouth than picking fun at me then I’d just have to keep it occupied for him. I felt the smirk curling his lips even as he opened his mouth for my tongue, and I concentrated on deep, bruising kisses custom made to turn his lips soft and pliable under mine. Oh, how I loved kissing the snark right out of him.

I wasn’t nearly done savoring that delicious mouth of his when he pulled away, kneeling in front of me with a gleam in his eyes. “You’re sexy when you’re angry,” he informed me, hands deftly unfastening my belt. “But you’re sexier when you’re naked.” Briskly, he unfastened my fly and slipped his hand into my boxers, pulling out my eager erection. “If we weren’t in here, I’d take off every stitch of your clothing and lick you till you begged for more. But since I can’t, I suppose I’ll just have to do this.” His mouth engulfed my cock whole, letting it slide all the way down to his throat. With his eyes focused on my groin, it’s not surprising that he missed the way that I flinched at his words.

I should have known that he wouldn’t take my clothes off in the common room. He’d never risk undressing either of us completely when there was any chance at all that someone might walk in. He’s not ashamed of me. Really, he’s not. (Most of the time,) I’m completely positive that he’s not in the least bit ashamed of the relationship the two of us have. He’s just cautious. Very, very cautious. Too cautious to let anyone know what we mean to each other. Too cautious to touch me when there’s anyone around to see. For a long time, he was even too cautious to kiss me when we were on school grounds. That’s when I came up with the charm.

The charm was tied to a dragon figurine Draco wore on a chain around his neck. (Anyone who dared to call it a necklace learned _why_ Draco was a nationally ranked duelist.) The figurine appeared to be unbroken silver from tip to toe, except for when Draco and I were alone in a room together. Then and only then, if there was no one near the doorways and no one headed toward whatever room we were in, the eyes of the dragon turned green. They would glow red and give Draco a mild shock if anyone was approaching and then turn solid silver again the second anyone else entered the room. 

It took me weeks to find the charm back in the beginning of fifth year when we took our friendship to the next stage, but the results were more than worth the effort involved. Draco doesn’t hesitate now to kiss me or touch me, or even give me an absolutely heavenly deep-throat blowjob right in the middle of the common room, but that was as far as he was willing to go in such publicly accessible space. Anything involving total nudity could only take place off of school grounds or in completely securable locations such as our dorm room when we were the only ones not in class. He was always far too hungry for affection to give up the chance for kisses and touches altogether when we were somewhere without a door that could be locked and shielded, but here in the common room, he was always careful to make sure that the eyes on the charm were green, and that neither of us removed too many clothes to be quickly replaced if someone walked toward the room. It wouldn’t do if anyone knew we were together. He wasn’t ashamed of me, of course he wasn’t ashamed of me, I _knew_ he wasn’t ashamed of me, but the two of us getting caught simply wouldn’t do at all.

It was no secret that I wasn’t crazy about all of Draco’s rules, but when he was touching me, it was hard for me to mind anything _too_ much. He unfastened his own trousers next and firmly fisted his cock while sucking out my soul through my prick, using his tongue to bring as much pleasure to my sensitive spots as he possibly could. His eyes locked with mine; they sparkled wickedly and challengingly in that way that makes me whimper as he deliberately switched the hands on his cock, lifting the hand sticky with pre-cum up to his face and underneath the point where he was devouring me to cradle and caress my balls. 

I exploded. My eyes slammed shut and my torso went rigid except for my hips, which thrust hard, over and over again into that warm, wet heaven as I emptied myself inside him. He swallowed every drop, actually increasing the suction—something I wouldn’t have thought possible mere moments before—to drain away every particle I had to give. By the time I floated back to earth, I was boneless, limp, and covered in sweat, slumped in one of the common room chairs, while Draco remained knelt in front of me, nonchalantly licking his hands clean.

“I love you,” I whispered.

Draco smiled, one of those sincere smiles that he rarely let anyone see. “I love you, too,” he answered. “Now, to bed with you, my love. Everything else can wait till morning.”

“But the rabbit…” I protested weakly.

“Obviously defective,” Draco answered in that trademark snooty tone as he fastened his trousers and rose to his feet. “There must be something wrong with anything that can resist _your_ magic.”

In spite of myself, I chuckled. “So what should I do with it?”

Draco shrugged elegantly. “Give it to the house-elves. I daresay they’ll be able to come up with some use for it.” 

Nodding obediently, I rose to my feet as well, fastening my limp and utterly sated cock inside my pants before snapping my fingers for a house elf. When one arrived, I simply pointed to the rabbit and to the mess he made on the desk, and then followed Draco into the dormitories. I’d catch another rabbit tomorrow and start the grueling process of working my way through the spell all over again. Anything else that needed doing, I’d deal with in the morning.

Chapter 2

As it turned out, the only problem I dealt with the following morning was how to make Draco scream as he came. I must admit, I loved being a seventh year. Yes, the work was more difficult than it had been in previous years, but it was also far more concentrated. Since each student took only the classes specifically related to their discipline, and since most of the work was to be performed through independent study and research performed outside of class, seventh years spent a surprisingly small amount of time actually in classrooms. On that particular day, I didn’t have class until after lunch, which meant that I could sleep until noon, if I wanted.

Normally, sleeping until noon was exactly what I would do, but with Theo in the hospital wing with a case of dragon pox that he caught Merlin knows where, and Greg and Vince in their remedial Charms class, Draco and I had the seventh year dorm to ourselves for the whole of the morning, a fact of which Draco saw fit to remind me by crawling naked into my bed after the others had left and waking me with a lubricated finger up my arse. 

It had been three weeks since I had had him inside me, so naturally, it didn’t take long for me to wake up completely and repay his assiduous attentions. He shagged me first, on my bed. Then I shagged him in the shower. And when I took his cock in my mouth while ‘helping’ him get dressed after the shower, he slid down on the floor with me and attacked my erection just as hungrily with his mouth as I attacked his with mine. He gripped my body so tightly as he pulled me in to his mouth, I was sure he left bruises, which made me happier than any sane person should be at an injury. In addition, I was quite sure I left bruises on him, which pleased me as well. Yes, I’m possessive. Yes, I’d like to mark him openly so that everyone would know he was mine. But most of all, I wanted _him_ to know that the marks were there. I wanted him to remember that I claimed him, that I loved him, and that he was mine as much as I was his, whether we could show it openly or not. And even though he didn’t say it, I knew that he felt the same way.

He did say he loved me, though. He shouted it, actually, as he came inside my mouth, pulling his lips away from my cock just long enough to gasp out the words before fastening them around me again, knowing that the declaration when I was already so close to cumming would be enough to send me over the edge. It did. It always did, ever since the first time he said it, when we made love for the first time. Limp and boneless as I was in the aftermath of a third bone-jarring orgasm, I summoned up enough energy to twist around and press my lips to his. We stayed like that in a haze of soft kisses and half-audible endearments, just loving each other, for as long as we could. 

By the time we managed to pull ourselves together enough to get up and get dressed, we had to practically run to the Great Hall in order to catch the last of lunch. Draco had Theoretical Astronomy which meant he only had time to grab a sandwich and take it with him to eat on the way up to the tower, grumbling as he went about how ridiculous it was to have an astronomy class in the middle of the day. He wasn’t alone in his complaint. Seventh year students who took astronomy always complained about the impracticability of studying the movement of the planets when all you could see was the sun, but the simple truth was, the younger years really required supervision for their astronomy studies, and the tower was booked with their classes for all the evening hours. Seventh years were supposed to be able to handle their practical astronomy lessons on their own, and simply had theoretical lessons that took place during the day. 

I had History of Magic, and knew that Professor Binns wouldn’t notice if I slipped into the lecture a few minutes late, meaning I had time not only to grab a quick sandwich for myself, but also to approach Professor McGonagall and ask for her if she could help me with my transfiguration problem. 

It was almost worth the humiliation of having to ask the Gryffindor Head of House for help to see the look of shock mixed with tinges of fear decorating Professor McGonagall’s face as I approached her at breakfast. One thing is for certain: Professor McGonagall was every bit as pleased to see me leave her class at the end of fifth year as I was pleased to go. 

After the boils-on-balls incident in fifth year, no student in Slytherin was willing to tutor me. With my grade in Transfiguration hanging on to Acceptable by a very thin thread, I approached the professor herself for some additional help. She agreed to meet with me during a mutual free period before dinner. Unfortunately, our meeting ran a bit long. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get the damn snail to vanish. I couldn’t even get _part_ of the snail to vanish. I was aggravated and frustrated and _hungry_ on top of it, once the meeting started running into dinner time. And the more annoyed I got, the more I started cursing under my breath.

Italian was my first language, picked up in my infancy from the servants who raised me in my parents’ villa before I came to Hogwarts. Around my distant, emotionless parents, I learned to speak in flawless English, but they were rarely home and when they left on their inevitable travels, I slipped back into Italian. I still have the habit of dipping into Italian when I’m exceptionally annoyed. My affinity for Italian and, by association, for Latin is part of the reason I’m able to perform so well in school. I don’t have any exceptional degree of magical power, but I do have a strong understanding for what spells mean, and how they break down. It helps, usually, particularly in the non-wand-based disciplines, like herbology and arithmancy where vocabulary is so important. 

Anyway, it was in Italian that I cursed under my breath as I paced McGonagall’s classroom on that memorable evening. To this day, I’m still not sure quite which spell I used. I’ve certainly never been able to recreate it. But it must have been reasonably close to the Latin phrase for some term of explosive, since by the time the dust settled in the classroom, two windows had shattered, three desks were splintered into toothpicks, scorch marks stained the floor, and the slime of half a dozen slugs coated McGonagall head to toe, dripping slowly onto the floor. McGonagall kept an admirable hold on her temper. Her voice did not rise into a shout even when slime started dripping off the tip of her nose. She simply told me, quietly and calmly, that she had had quite enough of tutoring for the day. 

For the rest of the term, while Hufflepuffs, Ravenclaws, and Gryffindors continued their practical applications in Transfiguration class, Slytherins were almost exclusively assigned essays. No explanation was given…unless you consider the way that McGonagall would turn white and involuntarily glance over at me whenever anyone asked if we’d be working on the spells in class to be an explanation.

I passed the rest of the course with an Exceeds Expectations, managed to avoid embarrassing myself at the Transfiguration O.W.L. (after cramming with next to no sleep for a solid week) and left Transfiguration behind with nary a sigh of regret. I dare say McGonagall went out and bought herself a celebratory drink when informed that Blaise Zabini would not be on her class rolls ever again. No wonder, then, that she looked a bit wary when I approached her at breakfast. 

“Mr. Zabini,” she stated crisply when she could no longer deny that I was headed to her and not another teacher. “How may I help you?”

Please understand that in general, I’m considered one of the least malicious students in Slytherin. I do not practice hexes on small children or animals when non-sentient targets are as readily available. I have never lethally poisoned anyone deliberately. I have never driven anyone to suicide, so far as I know. I have never used any debilitating or disfiguring hex that took longer than a month to wear off. And I have never involved myself in the deflowering competition that provides the major source of amusement in the Slytherin dormitory. But any Slytherin with even the slightest allowance of natural venom would be unable to prevent himself from enjoying the look on McGonagall’s face at the next words out of my mouth. 

“I was hoping, Professor, that you’d be able to tutor me through a transfiguration problem I’m having,” I stated in my most innocent of tones. I had had a great deal of practice with this particular voice, (I had discovered at some point midway through fifth year that it was enough to make Draco go instantly hard,) and knew how to use it to its best effect. (Mercifully, it did not appear to have the same effect on the venerable Professor McGonagall as it did on my lover).

She didn’t go white so much as she went very nearly silvery and transparent. For a moment, I thought the shock might have killed her. Fortunately, however, she rallied. It only took a quarter of an hour and several glasses of water before she was able to speak coherently again.

“I’m afraid my schedule is rather full this term, Mr. Zabini,” she managed at last. “I daresay one of your housemates could help you. Have you consulted with Mr. Malfoy on his availability? He’s the top Slytherin in my class.”

“Yes, Professor, but I’m afraid he said that his schedule was too full, as well.” He also said, when I pulled out the puppy eyes that morning and tried once again to convince him to help me, that the only way he was willing to play with my wand was if the final result left us both sweaty, sated and covered in cum instead of frustrated, nerve-strained and covered in boils. Wisely though, I refrained from mentioning this to McGonagall. I had already nearly given the woman a heart attack just by asking her for help. She wasn’t as young as she used to be; another shock might finish her off, and then where would I be with my problem?

“Perhaps you had best speak with the Head Girl, then,” McGonagall suggested. “She has a free period after lunch tomorrow that she generally devotes to tutoring. She should be able to provide assistance.”

I frowned at the thought and opened my mouth to protest, but McGonagall turned quickly to Professor Sprout who was seated next to her, and struck up a rather frantic conversation, designed, I’m certain, to convince me just to walk away. It worked. I certainly wasn’t about to make a scene, demanding that McGonagall help me. But the thought of asking Hermione Granger for help rankled more than a little.

I adore Draco, honestly I do, but he has single-handedly made it _very_ difficult for any Gryffindor to let a Slytherin get any closer to them than opposite sides of the Hogwarts Lake. And no Gryffindor was more jealously guarded than Hermione Granger. The Gryffindors were proud of their Head Girl, and rightfully so. Not only was she the brightest witch Hogwarts has seen in a century or so, but she was part of the legendary Golden Trio that represented hope and light and all that other rot to not just Hogwarts, but the wizarding world as a whole. There was no denying that Potter and Weasley were fiercely protective of her, and the younger Gryffindors tended to follow her around like she was some sort of holy figure. If any Slytherin tried to approach, they were sent off with a flea in their ear (and not always metaphorically) in a large hurry. Asking her for help would be…difficult.

In matters such as these, timing was always of the essence. Simply walking up to the girl when she was surrounded by her cronies and lackeys would have been tantamount to suicide. I had to catch her when she was alone. In one respect, I was rather lucky: Gryffindor’s Quidditch team had the field reserved right after dinner. That meant that Granger’s staunchest defenders, Potter, Weasley, and other Weasley, would be out of the picture. Granger, not surprisingly, headed straight for the library after finishing her dinner. When I followed her there, I found that once again, fortune had favored the devious, and the Head Girl was alone with her books.

Now all I needed to figure out was what to say. As best I could remember, Granger and I had never spoken. Ever. This was not as unusual as it might sound. I’d say that at least half of the students in our year, possibly more, had never spoken to me, either. There were only two or three outside of Slytherin who ever held a conversation with me lasting longer than thirty seconds or so. Gryffindors in particular, not terribly surprisingly, kept their distance. So in spite of the fact that Granger was Head Girl and ostensibly in charge of the whole of the student body, in addition to being a seventh year who had shared classes with me since we were eleven years old, I couldn’t remember a single occasion where we had spoken to each other. It simply never came up. I had no strong proof that she even knew who I was. That might play in my favor, of course. If she didn’t know me, she had no _specific_ reason to hate me. But it could work against me as well, if she followed the time-honored Gryffindor mindset that the only good Slytherin was a hexed-into-immobility Slytherin. Well, there was only one way to tell.

I moved toward her with most deliberate caution. Even though I didn’t know much about Granger personally, it was clear from the most cursory of glances at her and at her surroundings that there were dangers inherent in interrupting a studying Head Girl. She appeared to be quite grimly entrenched in a very large book and everyone in the library was giving her a _very_ clear berth; it had to be for a reason. Silently cursing McGonagall (if she wanted to get out of tutoring me so badly, the least she could have done was make my appointment for me!) I approached.

“Granger,” I managed to say, hoping against hope that my voice sounded less squeaky outside my head than it did within it.

She looked up with a frown of annoyance that melted into surprise when she saw who was standing in front of her.

“Er…I’m, um…” I stammered.

“I know who you are, Zabini,” she replied calmly with a surprising lack of animosity, flustering me still further. “Was there something you wanted?”

“I need your help,” I finally blurted out. A single, raised eyebrow was my only answer. 

“Transfiguration has always been my weak point,” I continued, “and if I can’t get the rabbit’s foot flowering plant ready by Friday, I’ll get zero credit in Potions.” She was in Potions with me, so I knew that she would understand my predicament. “Professor McGonagall thought you might be able to tutor me. She said you have a free period after lunch tomorrow. So do I. Could we work on it then?”

Both eyebrows went up at this statement.

“Is that a no, then?”

“I didn’t say that. It’s just…I would have thought that you’d prefer to go to Malfoy instead of me. He’s ranked in the top ten percent in Transfiguration.”

“You’re ranked in the top one percent,” I answered. “And besides, Malfoy has tried tutoring me before and it…didn’t end well. There’s no one else in Slytherin I can ask. So will you help me, or not?”

She tilted her head slightly to the side, consideringly. “Okay,” she said, a moment later. “There’s an empty classroom at the end of the Charms corridor, next to the portrait of Bertram the Befuddled. That’s where I usually do my tutoring. I’ll meet you after lunch.” With that said, she returned her attention to her book.

I waited a minute to see if anything else was forthcoming. It appeared that nothing was. Hesitant as I was to interrupt her again, I wanted to be certain we were quite finished before walking away. It had seemed far too easy. Surely, there was something more.

“Is that…all, then?” I asked hesitatingly.

When she looked up this time, I could tell she was surprised I was still standing there. “Was there something else you needed?” she asked politely.

I shook my head.

“Do you have any burning desire to discuss the weather, or anyone’s health?”

She couldn’t possibly be joking with me, could she? No. Not possible. Everyone knows that Gryffindors don’t have any sense of humor, especially when they’re dealing with Slytherins. I shook my head.

“Then I suppose that’s all.”

How could that be all? How could a Gryffindor agree to help a Slytherin and not set any ground rules? Not coerce any promises that I wouldn’t attack her or hurt her? Not make any threats enforcing my good behavior? Not even ask why on earth she should help me when I’d never done a thing for her? How was it possible that all I had to do was ask, and she would say yes? 

Bewilderment at the unaccountable Gryffindor kept me frozen in place for a few moments, but when Granger did not look up again, I gradually collected myself enough to walk away.

Chapter 3

I expected Draco to be at the pitch, spying on the Gryffindor Quidditch practice as usual, but when I arrived at the common room, he was there at the billiards table standing in profile to me, bent over to align his cue stick, eyes narrowed in concentration. All thoughts of Granger and Gryffindors flew from my head as I just stood there for a few moments, admiring my lover. Gods below, he was gorgeous. I had seen him naked as the day he was born, body stretched out before me, every inch of him glowing with ecstasy. After that, everything else _should_ seem commonplace, shouldn’t it? It wasn’t, though. His beauty never ceased to surprise me every time I saw it, in any way he displayed it. There was not a single time in my life when I didn’t think him beautiful, and every time I saw him, his beauty struck me again.

His shoulders shifted in a sudden, swift movement, driving the cue stick forward to knock another ball into a pocket with his usual skill. Draco was an excellent billiards player—a difficult skill to possess, considering how the balls roll continuously on their own momentum in intricate patterns across the table. Skill at billiards depended on a complete understanding of the speed and direction in which every ball moved and a stopwatch sense of timing on when their movements put them into the perfect alignment to strike them into the pockets. Draco, with his seeker’s eye for noticing things and his seeker’s speed for striking at the perfect moment, excelled at the game. I was the only one in Slytherin who came close to being his equal, and that was only because he begged and pleaded and pouted until I worked up my skills so he could have some competition. Draco always thrived on competition.

He didn’t like playing alone, though. The competition was what made it fun for him, not the game itself. He only played alone when he was upset and wanted to smash something, without looking conspicuous. He smiled tightly in satisfaction as he watched the ball slip neatly into place and stood upright. I could see the tension in his shoulders and wondered if I was the cause. He couldn’t possibly already know about my meeting with Granger, could he? At that moment, he looked up, noticing me for the first time as I stood in the doorway. For a moment, his shoulders slumped slightly in what looked like relief and his smile brightened. Then he seemed to remember something and went rigidly tense again. Damn. So I _was_ the reason he was upset. I had hoped that by the time he found out, we’d have the common room a bit more to ourselves. My most effective methods for calming him down on were not what you’d call ‘audience friendly.’ 

Since we didn’t have any afternoon classes together, I had hoped to get around to telling him during dinner about McGonagall’s suggestion that I go to Granger for help. I wanted him to know before I actually met with her so he wouldn’t hear about it from someone else, and I also knew that if I told him in a setting with professors present, he’d be less likely to throw a tantrum. (He had been furious when Potter, with no prefect experience, and marks lower than Draco’s, had been named Head Boy instead of him, but he still held out the hope that Potter would break his neck in a Quidditch match or a battle with the Dark Lord, and that the professors would need an alternate Head Boy to fill in for the rest of the term. Draco would do nothing in the view of professors to jeopardize his chances at being that substitute.) 

As chance would have it, though, Draco had scheduled a Quidditch practice session during dinner. Now that he had been named captain, he was determined to find a way to motivate his players into decimating Gryffindor in the upcoming match. Gryffindor was training just as hard, however, and had reserved the pitch that evening for the coveted after-dinner hour. Draco retaliated by scheduling practice _during_ dinner, having the house elves bring dinner to the pitch and waving it in the team members’ faces without allowing them to eat unless they performed at practice to his satisfaction. Given the size of the players on the team, I felt certain it would turn out to be quite a motivation, indeed. 

As a result, he didn’t show up for dinner at all. I thought about running down to the pitch and seeing if I could grab his attention before going after Granger but catching the girl in the library alone was too good an opportunity to pass up. I knew I didn’t have time to warn Draco first if I wanted to take advantage of the opportunity. Besides, I knew he would want to spy on the Gryffindor team practice, so I figured I’d have time to catch him as soon as he got back. Surely, no one would have a chance to get to him before then. I had come straight from the library to the common room, but it was obvious from the look on his face that some sneaking little tattletale had beaten me in, and spread the story that I had been seen talking to the notorious Head Girl.

Knowing that he’d just get angrier at me the longer he had to stew over it, I decided to face the music and head over to him right away. He pretended to ignore my approach; bending over to take another shot. While I admittedly enjoyed the view, I couldn’t let him ignore me for long.

“Mind if I join the game?” I asked, my voice deliberately mild. If he wanted a fight, he’d have to start it himself.

“Go ahead,” he bit out. “It’s not like you need _my_ permission for anything.”

Wisely, I chose not to respond. If I stayed silent long enough, I knew that Draco would get around to venting everything that was bothering him, and it was best not to speak until he was done. He never hexed me, no matter how angry he got, (he had far more control than I did) but he had been known in the past to shoot random hexes at the walls, and there were too many people in between him and walls to risk it. I didn’t want to be the cause of some fourth year ending up with donkey ears. Silently, I picked up a cue stick and waited for him to step back to give me my turn. He did so, grudgingly.

I was just lining up the shot when he spoke again. “No, there’s no reason why you should run things by me at all, is there? After all, if you decide to do something, I can always hear about it after the fact from a group of bloody _fifth years_ , can’t I?” Biting my tongue to force myself to wait until he was finished, I made the shot, knocking a ball neatly into a pocket.

I circled around the table for my next shot. Draco followed me. “And I certainly don’t need to know if you’re planning on meeting with one of the fucking ‘Golden Trio,’ do I? Of course, they _hate_ all Slytherins with a fiery passion, but that’s no reason for me to be concerned, is it?”

Since this question was obviously rhetorical as well, I concentrated on lining up my shot. A miss.

“Were you even planning on telling me?”

I straightened up and propped the cue stick against the table. Now that he was finally asking questions that required an actual answer, it was time for me to take part in the conversation.

“Yes,” I replied calmly. “I was planning on telling you. I just didn’t get a chance.”

His voice dropped down to below a whisper. “We shagged for three bloody hours this morning. You didn’t see fit to mention it then?”

“I didn’t know I was going to be talking to her, then.” I glanced around the room. As expected, everyone was watching us, while pretending not to. Fortunately, Draco’s last comment had been spoken too low for them to hear. Damn nosy Slytherins. Especially the bratty fifth years who spilled the beans to Draco and started this whole mess in the first place. I noticed a cluster of thee fifth year boys who looked equally smug and interested and knew I had spotted the tattlers. I tucked the information away for later. I might not be the most malicious of Slytherins, but that doesn’t mean I’d let something like that just slide. However, that was a matter for another day. At the moment, all the really mattered was calming Draco down.

“Take your shot,” I muttered quietly. Draco’s scowl went from hostile to confused.

“What?”

“Take your shot,” I repeated, a bit more forcefully this time. “Everyone’s watching the two of us. I’ll tell you anything you want to know, but I refuse to turn this into the brawl of the century. Now take the shot, damnit, and make it clear these fucking voyeurs that there’s nothing of interest here to see.”

Draco’s eyes widened and I could see him fighting the impulse to turn around and see if everyone really was watching us, like I had said. Fortunately, he managed to restrain himself, picking up his cue stick and lining up a shot. It snapped the ball into the pocket like it was on rails and I couldn’t stop a small smile of appreciation. It took more than anger or frustration to throw off Draco’s game. Everything came so easily to him, no matter how upset he got. 

I turned so that my back was to the billiards table, leaning against it casually. “I talked to McGonagall at lunch today,” I stated casually, chuckling a bit at the memory. “Nearly gave the old biddy a heart attack. Something tells me she wasn’t happy to see me.”

Draco chuckled as well, lining up his next shot. “Wish I could have seen it. But what were you talking to her about?”

“The rabbit’s foot flowering plant, remember? Since I can’t find anyone else to help me, I thought I might as well ask her.”

Draco nodded his understanding. “I’d forgotten about that,” he admitted. “What did she say?”

“She said she was booked up on tutoring right now, and couldn’t help me, of course. She wanted to know why I didn’t ask you for help, but I told her that that was out of the question.” Draco didn’t look up, but I saw him grin a bit as he lined up his next shot. “So then she suggested that I ask the Head Girl for help.”

The grin faded abruptly. “And you thought this was a good idea?” he questioned tightly.

“Mostly, I thought it was my only real option. You’re the only one in Slytherin with scores high enough to help me. No Ravenclaw would go out of their way for my sake, and Hufflepuffs couldn’t teach a fish to swim. McGonagall flatly refused to tutor me. The Head Girl and Boy are _required_ to help any students needing extra tutoring, and Granger has the highest Transfiguration scores in the school along with a history of tutoring any student who asked her. Would you rather I asked Potter?”

“I could try—”

“ _No_ Draco. All joking aside, when you try to help me in Transfiguration, we only end up frustrated…or worse. Let’s face it: we’re neither of us very patient. Granger _has_ to be patient. Look at the friends she puts up with!” That got me a small smile, but it faded almost as quickly as it appeared.

“I’ll be _fine_. It’s not as if she’s planning on tutoring me in the Gryffindor common room. It will just be the two of us, one on one.”

Draco went rigid again, any signs of softening vanishing abruptly. “The _hell_ you will. I’m not leaving you alone with her. I’m coming with you.”

“For crying out loud, it’s a tutoring session, not a bloody duel! I don’t need a second.”

“Did it ever occur to you that it might not be safe?” he hissed. With difficulty, I managed to keep from rolling my eyes. Here was the real crux of the matter. 

Over-protective barely began to describe Draco when it came to me. It would have been almost endearing if it wasn’t so frustrating. Yes, Draco was a superb duelist in the process of training himself as a curse breaker which meant that he was _very_ adept at self-defense, but I wasn’t exactly hopeless with a wand, either. I didn’t need him following after me like my own, personal knight in shining armor. I wasn’t a warrior, myself, but that didn’t make me a damsel in distress. It was more than a little insulting that Draco didn’t think I was capable of taking care of myself without him around to protect me. Especially since most of the conflicts that happened around me took place because of him. 

It was true that I was less capable of fighting my way out of a situation, but situations were less likely to reach the fighting point when Draco wasn’t around. There was no denying that combining Draco with any Gryffindors at all and any member of the sodding Golden Trio in particular was incendiary, at best. With Potter and Weasley, they resorted to hexes or fists in under five minutes. It was worse with Granger. She wasn’t the type to hex students in the hallways and she certainly didn’t resort to fist-fighting, but she was always, _always_ smart enough to know how to make just the right cutting remark to leave Draco smarting for days afterwards. Nobody got to him like Granger did—not even Potter, which made him all the more determined to get under her skin, as well. 

Putting the two of them in the same room was a recipe for disaster, and the last thing I wanted was to waste my tutoring time playing referee. Our conversation in the library was the first time I had gotten within speaking distance to Granger without Draco there, and it was a pleasant surprise to discover that she was polite, if somewhat wary, when she wasn’t actively provoked. The tutoring session might just work…if I could get Draco to finally see reason!

Or if I could trick him. That would work, too. I had that free period after lunch, but Draco had class. I knew that if I told him that that was when I was planning to meet Granger, that he’d cut class to come with me. But if he didn’t know that we were planning on meeting then, and if I could get him to go to class without raising his suspicions, he’d be none the wiser as to how I spent my free period until it was over. Oh, he’d be furious with me once he found out, but with Draco, it’s always far easier to ask forgiveness than permission. 

“Draco, you _can’t_ come with me! You have another practice scheduled after dinner tomorrow! The game with Gryffindor is next week; there’s no way you could get out of going to practice.” 

Of course, we _both_ knew that that wasn’t true. Draco, the clever, lazy bastard, had taken on Graham Pritchard, a skinny, weasel-faced fourth year as sort of an assistant coach. The boy had no Quidditch talent whatsoever, but he excelled at sucking up to Draco, doing all the boring paperwork associated with running the House team, and bossing the team members around. Whenever Draco felt like slacking off at a practice and nipping off to get a sandwich or something, he’d leave Graham in charge, knowing that Graham would take great, sadistic delight in forcing the team to go through their drills. In hopes that he’d be able to tell someone off, Graham never missed a practice. And since he owed his position of glorious authority to Draco’s benevolence, he would never think of suggesting to the team captain that maybe, just maybe, he shouldn’t miss a practice, himself.

But now that I had ‘let it slip’ that the meeting was scheduled for after dinner, I could see the plan forming in Draco’s mind as clearly as if he had stood up on the billiards table and announced it the room at large. It was difficult not to laugh, but I pretended to be taken in by the way he nodded and agreed with me, saying that he’d go to practice, and that I’d just have to be on my own for my meeting with Granger. He was in a much better mood as we finished the game of billiards (which he won, of course) and was even happy and daring enough to give me a quick kiss-and-grope in the stairwell as we headed up to bed. As I went through my bedtime rituals, I imagined how much harder it would be to calm him down tomorrow, once he found out that I’d met with Granger behind his back. Biting back a groan at the thought of it, I lofted a quick prayer to whatever higher power listens to Slytherins that the tutoring session with Granger would prove worth the trouble, before climbing into bed and drifting instantly to sleep.

Chapter 4

To my great good fortune, Draco was so pleased with himself for ‘pulling one over’ on me that he didn’t even notice my uneasiness as the after-lunch tutoring session approached. As I headed toward the classroom where we were supposed to meet, I was plagued with doubts. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. Maybe Draco had had the right idea when he thought I shouldn’t meet with a Gryffindor alone. Maybe I should just blow her off and work on the spell some more on my own. Maybe I should…maybe I should just go into the room and stop acting like an ickle firstie.

She was already there when I arrived, seated at the teacher’s desk at the head of the room, nibbling on a sugar quill while flipping through a massive book and scribbling something onto a piece of parchment. She looked up when she heard the door open, but made no move to attack, or even defend herself against attack. Her wand was resting on the desk, but her hand didn’t so much as twitch in its direction. My worries were starting to seem more and more foolish, and I was glad that I hadn’t given in to Draco.

“Have you got the rabbit, then?” she asked abruptly.

Nodding, I held up the rabbit I had captured earlier that morning. She nodded, a quick jerk of approval, gesturing to a pen she had conjured on one of the desktops. Placing the rabbit inside, I turned to her and awaited further instruction. She had stood and moved around to the front of the desk, seating herself on the edge as she watched me.

“Go ahead, then,” she stated.

I raised an eyebrow. “Granger, if I was able to pull off the spell as easily as that, I wouldn’t need your help, would I?”

“And how do you expect me to be any help if I don’t know what you’re doing wrong?” she countered. “I have to see you try it first, don’t I?” 

Oh. Right. She had a point. Turning to face the rabbit, I raised my wand to cast the spell. 

“Lepus florens!” I stated firmly. As usual, nothing happened. I turned to Granger again, waiting to see what she would say now.

“Again,” she ordered. “Try it again.” Rolling my eyes a bit mentally, I inhaled to say the words of the spell.

“Stop!” Granger commanded. Though surprised and a bit bewildered, I obeyed.

“What were you thinking then, just before casting the spell? What were you concentrating on?”

“Enunciating the words?” I stated uncertainly.

“Good,” Granger smiled briefly in approval. “What else?”

“The correct wand movement.”

“What else?”

“Focusing my magic.”

“Very good. Now, what _else_?”

I paused, considering it, and coming up blank. What else _was_ there? This was magic, wasn’t it? Wasn’t that how magic worked? Wave a wand, say the magic words, and something was supposed to _happen_ …wasn’t it?

Granger must have seen my confusion because she hopped off the desk and came over to stand next to me, very carefully pulling the wand out of my hand and placing it on the desk. (McGonagall must have warned her.) 

“Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?”

“Go ahead,” I replied warily. Merlin only knew what kind of question would drive even a Gryffindor to request permission before asking. I comforted myself in the knowledge that I’d be able to lie circles around her without her noticing if it was a question I truly didn’t _want_ to answer.

“Do you like your first name?”

“It’s a family name,” I answered stiffly.

“That’s not what I asked,” she replied, obviously fighting the urge to smile.

“I fail to see what my name has to do with Transfiguration,” I stated freezingly. She refused to be frozen.

“That doesn’t answer the question, either.”

“I asked you here to _tutor_ me, not to cross-examine me.”

“You asked me to _help_ you, and I agreed. You didn’t ask what methods I would use. And you still haven’t answered the question.”

“What business is it of yours if I like my name or not?”

“None of my business at all, but that’s not going to stop me from asking. Just tell me: do you like your—”

“No, alright? I don’t like my name!” I shouted out, temper snapping at last. “I hate that people are always spelling it wrong, or thinking it’s a girl’s name, or calling me Blay for short, like my cousin Trent. It sounds like the name for a horse, not a person!”

“And did you ever pretend you had a different name, when you were little?” she prompted, and I answered without thinking.

“I used to pretend my name was—”

“Yes?”

“It doesn’t matter,” I mumbled. 

“Doesn’t it?”

“El Dorado,” I mumbled, barely audibly.

“Really?” she replied. Her voice sounded more surprised than amused, but I hated the thought that she might be laughing at me behind her courteous facade. 

“I always liked the name,” I added defensively. “I liked the way people said it, like it was something powerful and wonderful and mysterious and—”

“Magical?”

My eyes snapped up to look at her. “Yes,” I answered eventually. “How did you know?”

She smiled softly, almost nostalgically. “How much do you know about magical theory?”

“Do you ever actually _stay_ with a conversation until it’s finished, or do you always randomly jump from one topic to the next?”

I had hoped that using her own tactics of asking abrupt questions might startle her, just as it had startled me, but it didn’t seem to work.

“It isn’t random,” she replied smoothly, without a hint of hesitation. “There’s always a link. It’s just not always an obvious link to someone who doesn’t know me well enough to know how I associate ideas. So how much _do_ you know about magical theory?”

“A bit,” I hedged, uncertain exactly what she meant.

“Aside from magical quotient and knowledge of the words and wand movement necessary to cast a spell, what else is involved? What’s the catalyst that makes magic take place in the end?”

I shook my head. Obviously, there was something else involved, but I hadn’t the faintest idea what. I had the sneaking suspicion, though, that it was what gave me such trouble with Transfiguration and Charms.

“Imagination,” she answered simply. “In order to change something into something else, you have to imagine the change, picturing it in your mind. It’s not enough to want a spell to work; you have to believe that it _will_ work and be able to picture the results along with the process of the change.”

“Is that true?” I questioned, wondering if she was pulling my leg. The whole touchy-feely, ‘connect with your inner imagination’ lecture sounded like a variation on the old ‘if you close your eyes and wish really hard, a fairy will bring you a surprise’ hoax that my sisters used to pull on me when I was little and gullible.

“Haven’t you ever wondered why there are so few Ravenclaws who are known as being really _powerful_ witches and wizards?”

My eyes narrowed. Now I _knew_ she was toying with me. “You can _not_ convince me that there is any logical train of thought connecting your last two sentences,” I stated, trying to keep a firm reign on my temper, without much success. I hated the thought that she was deliberately wasting my time.

“Ravenclaws don’t have much imagination,” she explained patiently. “They’re very bright, of course, and they can research and understand very powerful spells, but they can’t usually _cast_ them. They’re just too practical to indulge in imagination and too logical to see things as they _could_ be instead of as they _are_.”

“But Flitwick is one of the leading Charms masters in England!” I protested.

“And he’s also lived a long life in the wizarding world with his size as a handicap that has required him to constantly find or _create_ ways to compensate. It’s the imagination he has developed—combined with his Ravenclaw logic and discipline—that have made him such a leader in the Charms field.”

To my utter consternation, it almost sounded as if it made sense. But I wasn’t ready to yield the point easily. “What about Slytherins?” I questioned. “We’re practical _and_ powerful. How do you explain that?”

The smile faded from her face. “You’re also ambitious,” she stated softly, “which can lead to the development of a very dangerous type of imagination. Did you know that Voldemort was raised in a muggle orphanage?” Dumbstruck even more at the ease with which she said You Know Who’s name than at the sudden shift in the conversation, I could barely manage to shake my head in response. 

“He hated it,” she continued. “Hated the people at the orphanage and hated his family that put him there. He got revenge on his family early on, but destroying the orphanage wasn’t a one-wizard job, and with destruction of muggles as his goal, he was a little hesitant to admit to his followers that he was raised in a muggle orphanage. About a month before he attacked the Potters, he finally felt secure enough in his power to take his Death Eaters with him to take his revenge. They attacked the orphanage and burned it to the ground, killing everyone inside, including children who hadn’t even been born when he lived there.” She bit her lip, seemingly searching for the right words. 

“The spell he used to burn it down…he _created_ that spell. Before that night, there was no such thing as a fire that didn’t go out when it had nothing left to burn, or that followed anything that tried to escape the target until it had been burnt to ashes as well. Five children managed to run from the burning building just to have the fire follow after them, burning them as they stood, in the middle of the street. When the muggle fire department came the next day, all that was left was ashes. _Nothing_ had survived even partially intact, all the way down to the foundations of the building. No wizard on earth had ever heard of a fire that could do that. But no one had ever wanted so badly to eradicate something that they were willing to kill without mercy, in as painful a manner as could be devised. Witnesses said he laughed as he watched the building burn, saying that it looked just as he had imagined it would, all those years. That kind of hate, that kind of destruction…it’s just not _possible_ unless you’ve spent so much time imagining it that the picture of the process is clear in your head.”

She fell silent, lost in her thoughts, and I fidgeted uncomfortably, wanting badly to break the moment. Political conversations always made me uncomfortable. Zabinis were nonpolitical by nature. My sisters were married to stuffy diplomats who had no understanding of the world outside their limited spheres, and my parents were too wrapped up in their businesses to concern themselves with politics. They were not Death Eaters, but as far as I could tell, they didn’t much care who won the war. I hoped for a Death Eater victory mostly because I wanted Draco to be on the winning side. Other than that, the war was of little concern to me. There was no reason for me to be involved; the Death Eaters had no cause to direct their venom at me, so it wasn’t my problem. I told myself that I wasn’t bothered by Death Eater raids, or by the things the Daily Prophet claimed Death Eaters did. Everyone knew the Daily Prophet was full of rubbish, anyway. Voldemort and his Death Eaters were ruthless, sure, but everyone was ruthless when there was a war to be fought. That was the only way to secure a victory. I knew full well that the man wasn’t a saint, but hating muggles wasn’t a sign of incurable dementia. Just because he was a hard man didn’t mean that he was a sadistic monster that liked the drink the blood of babies, as the journalists seemed to claim. Unquestionably, the truth lay somewhere in between, as it did with most things. 

“That’s probably just an exaggeration,” I stated confidently, breaking the silence. “You can’t believe everything you read in the Daily Prophet.” 

She looked up, startled. Apparently, she had forgotten I was there. “Oh, I didn’t read about it in the Daily Prophet. Or rather, I didn’t read about it _only_ in the Daily Prophet. I read the muggle news story first, years ago, for a primary school project on news stories from the day I was born. It wasn’t until I came here to Hogwarts and learned about Voldemort’s background that I made the connection and read the Daily Prophet’s story.”

“But that’s not the point,” she continued briskly. “The point is you have to be able to _imagine_ something in order to make it happen. Especially with transfiguration. Knowing what it’s supposed to look like in the end isn’t enough. You have to imagine how one object will transform itself, piece by piece, into something else. That’s how magic works. If you can imagine it, if you mind can conceive of even the _possibility_ , then magic can make it possible. But if you simply can’t imagine a rabbit turning into a plant, then it’s never going to happen.”

“Oh,” I stated, deflating visibly. “So you’re saying it’s hopeless? I’m never going to be able to nail this spell?”

“No, that’s not it at all!” she protested, shaking her head so energetically that her hair tumbled into her eyes. She brushed it back impatiently. “I’m saying you _will_ be able to do it. You’re not used to using your imagination, but you still have one. The way that you used to imagine you had a different name proves that. Now, do you like flowers?”

Unable to keep up with her verbal pace, I growled in frustration. “Why do you ask so many random questions?”

“Because when I catch you off guard, you’re more likely to give an honest answer.”

I opened my mouth to retort, then closed it. “You’re right,” I admitted. “And _yes_ , before you ask again, I like flowers.”

“What’s your favorite?”

I started to shrug, but she raised that damn single eyebrow again, and I knew I wasn’t going to get away with not answering. “Roses, I guess,” I answered. “Yellow ones.”

“Good!” she answered, smiling approvingly. “Now, close your eyes.” I hesitated, and she huffed in annoyance. “I outscored you by more than twenty percent when you were in Defense, Zabini. If I was going to attack you, I wouldn’t need to wait for your eyes to be closed.”

She had a point. Alright, so she had a very _good_ point. Although my hexes were better than my Charms and loads better than my Transfiguration, I knew that they didn’t even approach her level of expertise. I closed my eyes.

“Now picture the rabbit,” I heard her say, her voice coming closer and closer until I could tell she was standing right next to me. “Picture every detail, from the color of the fur to the way its nose twitches. Can you see it clearly?” I nodded. “We’ll start simple. Imagine a green ribbon around the rabbit’s neck.” I added the ribbon to my mental picture of the rabbit. “Now imagine the green spreading out from the ribbon to cover the rabbit. Spreading backwards over the rabbit’s back, down to the legs, and up to the head, all the way to the tips of the ears until the rabbit is green from head to toe. Are you picturing that?” This was a bit harder, but eventually I was able to grasp the picture, and nodded. 

“Now imagine that the fur changes texture,” she continued. Her voice was softer as she forced me to concentrate. She was standing so close to me by then; I could feel the warmth coming off of her. “It bunches up into clusters, shaped almost like leaves. But if you look closer, you see that it _is_ leaves. The fur is shifting into leaves, all over the rabbit’s body until it’s covered in leaves. Still with me?” Again, I nodded.

“Okay, we’re almost there. Imagine, here and there, that you can see the beginnings of buds coming up between the leaves. Do you see them?” Nod. “They’re growing fast, inching their way up out of the leaves until you can see them clearly, half a dozen or more buds, spread out through the leaves. But the buds aren’t green anymore. They’ve grown until their natural color shows, and you can tell that they’re yellow. But they don’t stop there.” I felt something press against my hand and grasped it, recognizing the shape and feel of my wand. “The buds keep opening slowly, just a few petals at a time, blossoming gradually into half open, yellow roses.” I could smell her hair. It smelled like roses, and that helped cement the picture in my mind. “Can you see them?” One last nod.

I felt her hand on my wrist, aiming it in a particular direction. “You know the words,” she said. “You know the wand movement. You can feel the magic inside you and inside your wand, and you know exactly how it will look. So say it now.” Inhaling deeply, I let the words flow out of my mouth as I exhaled.

“Lepus florens.”

“You can open your eyes now,” she said, her voice once more on the other side of the room. Unaccountably, I felt disappointed that she was no longer next to me. Opening my eyes, they slid automatically across the room to find her. She was packing her books back up into her bag.

“What are you looking at me for?” she asked when she noticed my eyes on her. “Shouldn’t you be looking at that?” She pointed over in the direction of the table where I had left the rabbit. Following her direction, I looked over at the table and was hard-pressed to keep my jaw from dropping open in shock at what I saw.

My rabbit’s foot flowering plant. It was perfect. Looking exactly as I had pictured it, it maintained the shape of a rabbit formed out of leaves, sprinkled throughout its body with large, half-open, absolutely beautiful yellow roses.

I heard the sound of the classroom door open, and Granger’s voice softly saying, “Well done, Zabini,” but by the time I looked over, she was gone.

Chapter 5

It took me the rest of the week to get Draco to forgive me for meeting with Granger behind his back. I knew he wouldn’t take it well that I had lied to him, but I certainly hadn’t expected him to react so violently. I had expected a bit of shouting, probably a bit of pouting, and a few days of me spoiling him rotten and walking on eggshells until he fully forgave me. Instead, I got three and a half days of him ignoring my existence and smashing the living hell out of the billiards balls every night to vent his anger, when he wasn’t out on the Quidditch pitch, flying like a maniac with a death wish. Three and a half days of hell, worrying myself sick about him and what he might do without me there with him, to keep him reigned in. I wouldn’t have put it past him to challenge Granger outright, even though she hadn’t done a single thing to hurt me, just because she _might_ have hurt me without him there to protect me, and the idea scared him enough to have him mightily pissed off.

I think his anger might have lasted longer, if Slytherin hadn’t lost the Quidditch game to Gryffindor that weekend. The game was devastating for Slytherin fans. Miles Bletchly who had been keeper for the Slytherin team ever since I was a first year, finally managed to pass his N.E.W.T.s the second time around the previous summer, leaving Draco with the task of training and breaking in a new keeper for our final season. Edgar Hunter, a third year, had taken over the position. He wasn’t bad—he was fast and strong and had performed well at the tryouts and the practice sessions—but no one had anticipated his fit of nerves before the game. After throwing up, seemingly, everything he had eaten for the past week or so, he was barely steady enough to mount his broom, and only got worse as the game progressed. The Gryffindor chasers, led by other-Weasley, ate him for breakfast. The more shots they scored past him, the more flustered he got, and the worse he played. Our chasers and beaters put up a hell of a fight, but despite their efforts, Slytherin got ground into the mud. 

Worst of all, once Potter caught on to what was happening, he called a brief time out to huddle with his team. After that, their tactics changed. They were no longer out to win the game; they were out to disgrace Slytherin. While the Gryffindor stands chorused out “Hunter Is Our King,” the chasers, beaters, and most especially the seeker concentrated on blocking the snitch. Any time that tell-tale flash of gold caught Potter’s eye, he’d lead the rest of his team in circling around Draco to keep him from going after it. Until the snitch was caught, the game couldn’t end, and Slytherin’s humiliation would continue, and Potter made sure that Draco didn’t even have the chance to go after the snitch until Gryffindor was already up by 160 points, meaning that we wouldn’t have won the game even if Draco _had_ managed to catch the snitch. He didn’t, of course. The final score, when Potter finally deigned to put us out of our misery, was 330 to 10. If it weren’t for the brilliant goal by Warrington, at the beginning of the game before the team became so dispirited, it would have been a shut-out. As it stood, it was the most crushing Quidditch loss the Slytherin house team had suffered in fifty years.

Draco took it very hard. Bad enough that he should lose to his detested rival in the first game of his season as captain. Worse still that he should lose his last chance at ever defeating Potter on the Quidditch pitch. But that the first game with himself at the helm should be a loss that would go down in history books was more than Draco could take. He positively _reamed_ the team for a solid hour after the game before kicking them out of the changing rooms and telling them to get out of his sight and _stay_ out of it, if they knew what was good for them.

Apparently they did, because they scattered quite quickly. By the time I was able to sneak into the changing rooms, no one was there but Draco, still in his sweaty uniform, seated on a bench with his head in his hands. He wasn’t crying—Draco never cried—but he looked more defeated than I had ever seen him. He didn’t even look up when I seated myself next to him.

“I failed,” he whispered, so softly that I barely heard him. 

If Lucius Malfoy had shown up at that moment, I’d have strangled him with my bare hands. I knew it was his fault that Draco saw himself as a failure whenever he couldn’t fly faster than the speed of light, or score five hundred percent on his year end exams, or pull golden eggs out of his arse. There were times when I almost wished that Lucius really _was_ a little free with his wand and his fists, the way many people claimed. If he ever actually had raised a hand against Draco or Narcissa, then Draco would have been able to hate him with a clear conscience. But instead, Lucius contented himself with cutting them down in little ways by belittling all their accomplishments and magnifying their failures. He was a sick fuck who always felt like he had to be better than everyone else and got his kicks from bullying his wife and child. Unfortunately, instead of seeing these actions as proof of _Lucius’_ weakness, Draco saw the treatment he received as evidence of his own inferiority. I knew from vast, painful experience that nothing I said would change his mind.

“I love you,” I whispered instead. At those words, he looked up at last, his face drawn tight with pain and frustration, and spoke to me while looking me in the eye for the first time in days. 

“Why?” he asked, his voice breaking slightly on the word. “Why would you love me?”

“Because you let me,” I answered reaching up to brush a lock of silky soft hair out of his eyes. Loving Draco was easy; he had no idea how easy. For all his superficial arrogance, he never realized just how charming and appealing he could be, when he wasn’t trying so hard. Thanks to bloody Lucius, Draco’s self-esteem was so low that he automatically suspected the motives of anyone showing admiration for him. I still don’t know why he let me in, but I knew that this was one of the times to make him glad that he had. I needed to show him just how good it felt to be loved. 

I gently tucked the soft strand behind his ear, trailing my fingers back softly over his cheek, keeping the touch light in case he decided to pull away. He didn’t. He shuddered as my fingers touched his skin, eyes closing for a brief moment, before lunging at me, digging his fingers into the back of my neck and bruising my mouth with his. Moments later, when my lips were still tingling from the sudden impact with his, he pulled away just enough to speak, breathing the words against my lips.

“Show me how much you love me.”

Leaning forward to brush my lips against his, softly this time, not letting him take control of the kiss, I pulled out my wand and closed my eyes. Taking a deep breath, I pictured the bench we were seated on behind my closed eyelids until I could picture it perfectly in every detail. Slowly, gradually, I made changes to the image till I could picture the bench softening, spreading, and thickening into a bed with a plush mattress.

“Mutare lectus,” I stated firmly with my eyes still closed. I heard Draco gasp in surprise, and summoned the courage to open my eyes, praying I hadn’t just turned my best friend and lover into a squid.

Instead, I found him still irresistibly human, though looking rather silly at that moment with his eyes wide open and his jaw hanging somewhere around his knees, sprawled on the thick, soft mattress of the bed that had appeared _perfectly_ , just as I had pictured it.

“How…” he gasped. “What…How…?”

I silenced him with my lips on his as I climbed onto the bed with him, kicking off my shoes and unfastening my robes in my haste to be naked with him as quickly as possible. He stopped trying to ask questions as soon as my tongue entered his mouth and was soon working as busily to get out of his clothes as I was to get out of mine. The sweat made the clothes stick to his skin, and I couldn’t help but chuckle at his growl of annoyance when the tight material positively refused to peel away from his body. He threw me a beautiful glare to which I responded by kissing and licking every inch of flesh he had managed to bare, finally reaching the groin of his pants. Peeling off the tight trousers was difficult in any circumstances, so I didn’t bother trying. I simply unfastened them, working them down a bit at a time until I had freed the achingly hard object of my search into my hand.

I had mastered deep-throating the summer before, and put those skills to work on my lover right away, swallowing him down to the root while he gasped and howled and thrashed so hard, I had to pin down his legs under my body to keep him from bucking me off his body altogether. His hands flew out frantically, trying to touch me in return, but I batted them away. This was for him, for me to take care of him. Even when he was begging and cursing me with every breath that he took, I didn’t stop until I felt him climax, absorbing the myriad sensations of his hands fisting in my hair while his taste exploded on my tongue and the sound of his screams echoed in my ear. Then and only then did I give into his hands urging me up on the bed to lie beside him. 

From the way he had screamed, I rather expected him to be a bit comatose for the next hour or so. My ego was a bit bruised to feel him stirring beside me only a few minutes later, but it was pacified by his request.

“Need you inside me,” he whispered, twisting his way out of his clothes and unfastening my trousers as well. 

“No, love,” I tried to protest. “I shouldn’t. You’re tired, you’re sore, you’ve been on a broomstick for hours…I don’t want to hurt you.”

“ _Need_ you,” he repeated, pulling out my stiff cock and stroking it firmly. I immediately stopped arguing and concentrated on shedding the last of our clothing. Retrieving my wand from where it had fallen, I cast the lubrication charm before sliding my body on top of Draco’s. His legs wrapped themselves around me and he moaned in pleasure as I slid, as carefully as possible, inside him. I wanted him too badly to stay gentle for long, and soon I was thrusting hard and deep all the way inside him. His whisper in my ear that he loved me was enough to send me over the edge and I came so hard, I saw black spots in front of my eyes before I collapsed on top of him. 

Heaven only knows how long it was before we mustered the energy to drag ourselves into the shower. Of course, what we _did_ in the shower once we got there wasn’t exactly what the healer ordered to replenish our energy but after several thorough explorations with mouths and hands in addition to soap, we got ourselves reasonably clean, in body if not in mind. Draco had a wicked smirk on his face as we got dressed, and I knew that he was alright again, especially when he started whining about having to clean up the mess in the locker room. 

The uniforms were always left in the messy pile on the floor after a game—that’s what house elves are for—but the team was usually responsible for making sure that the brooms and other pieces of equipment were properly cleaned and stored before leaving. Of course, the team wasn’t usually berated for an hour or so after the game. When Draco finally finished ranting and raving, they were so pleased to be getting out of there alive that they didn’t bother seeing to their equipment. As team captain, it was, technically, Draco’s responsibility to make sure that it was taken care of, but he had no problem resorting to whining to try to convince me otherwise.

“I’m the captain,” he complained. “This is work for the _players_ to do.” He said the word ‘players’ as if they were some type of useful but foul-smelling mold. 

“The players aren’t here,” I reminded him.

“I could fetch them,” he suggested hopefully.

“They wouldn’t let you get within five broomstick lengths of them before _running_ with all their might to the hills.”

He pouted a bit more. “But I’m the _captain_!” he reiterated. Showing superhuman restraint, I managed to keep from rolling my eyes. 

“Why don’t you go ahead back to the castle, love?” I suggested in as neutral a tone as I could manage. “I’ll finish up here.”

Draco brightened immediately. “Are you sure?” he asked, not really waiting for an answer before gathering his stuff to depart.

“Sure and certain,” I replied, deciding that it was well worth it to handle all the rest of the cleaning myself if it meant being spared his grumblings. He rewarded me with a lingering kiss before he left that was enough to make my eyes glaze over, remembering the delicious things he had done to other parts of me with his tongue, only an hour or so before. Even when I came out of the daze to discover him long gone, I stayed in a good enough mood to clean the rest of the locker room quickly and thoroughly. With the work finally done, I headed back to the castle, mentally running through what I needed to do for the rest of the day. The last thing I expected was to run into Hermione Granger in the entrance hall, giving every appearance of having waited for my arrival.

“It was a horrible game,” she announced bluntly, without preface, once she was in speaking range. “I’m ashamed of what the Gryffindor team did, Harry and Ron in particular. I read them the riot act for it, if that’s any comfort.”

In spite of myself, I chuckled a bit at the thought of it. Weasley was one of the tallest boys in seventh year, and Potter was no shrimp, himself, anymore, while Granger hadn’t gotten any taller since fourth year. Both of ‘her boys’ stood head and shoulders above her in addition to being much bulkier in build and should, in theory, have been about as intimidated by Granger as I would be by a puffskein. And yet it wasn’t a difficult image to imagine: Granger raking the two of them over the coals while they hung their heads and waited for her to finish. Merlin knew she led those two around by the nose whenever she put her foot down.

The thought of how much Draco would enjoy the sight she had described drove away the last of my laughter. There was no doubt that Draco would’ve dearly loved to see Potter and Weasley humiliated in return for the crushing humiliation they had subjected him to, just that afternoon. 

“There’s really nothing to apologize for,” I insisted. “You certainly didn’t do anything wrong, and as far as your friends…well…if we had been able to pull it off back in fifth year, when Weasley played his first game as keeper, we’d have done the same thing,” I admitted ruefully. 

“Ah, but we’re prunes and prisms, holier than thou Gryffindors,” she responded. I bit back the urge to laugh. Since when did Granger have a sense of humor? She smiled back at me, in response to the grin on my face that I couldn’t hide. She had a…surprisingly nice smile. It faded a moment later, and I was sorry to see it go. “We’re supposed to be better than that,” she concluded.

“You aren’t.”

She smiled sadly. “I know. I wish we were. I’m sorry that we’re not. I’d tell you to apologize to Malfoy for me, but he’d probably think I was just making fun of him, wouldn’t he?” I nodded, knowing that that was _exactly_ what Draco would think. “At any rate, I’m glad I got to tell _you_ how sorry I am that it happened. And I will say that Harry and Ron are sorry as well.”

“They are?” I asked incredulously.

Her smile was a touch wicked this time. I liked it even better that way. “Oh yes,” she replied mysteriously. “They’re _very_ sorry. Trust me.” I raised a single eyebrow, waiting for her to elaborate. “Oh, I may have cast a _tiny_ little hex that I know they won’t want to be showing to Madam Pomfrey that won’t wear off for another few hours.”

This time, I didn’t bother trying to hold back the laugh. She threw me a wink before disappearing down the hall. I watched her go, still chuckling a bit to myself, and coming to the slow realization that Gryffindor or not, she really was a rather remarkable girl. It was almost a pity, I thought to myself, that I’d probably never have reason to talk to her again. But although my imagination had developed a bit lately, I couldn’t imagine any circumstances that would lead me to speak with her anymore.

I was, in fact, incorrect, though it would be a few weeks before I realized that for myself. As it turned out, we reached December before I had any reason to speak to Hermione Granger again.

Chapter 6

I could say that I didn’t give Granger a second thought in those weeks that we went without talking to each other, but it wouldn’t be true. To be honest, the brunette witch was on my mind rather more than I would have liked. Part of the reason, of course, was Draco. Draco was not, alas, the type to forgive and forget, especially when it came to Gryffindors, and as November slipped by, he came up with more and more elaborate punishments for Potter and Weasley for their behavior on the Quidditch pitch. Granger, by association, was brought up as well, as Draco cursed her knowledge of spells and, more importantly, counter spells that would prevent Potter and Weasley from getting what they deserved.

I learned to change the subject whenever her name came up and to _prevent_ the subject from coming up whenever I could. (A carefully selected poison slipped into the pumpkin juice of an obnoxious third year taught him that when I said that no one in the common room was to mention Hermione Granger in Draco’s hearing, I meant that _no one was to bloody well mention her_. The poison was fairly mild; it didn’t kill him, it just made him _want_ to die for a couple of days until the effects wore off.) I was a Slytherin, yes, and I certainly wasn’t above using people to my benefit, but I wasn’t _completely_ without a conscience. Hermione Granger had done me a good turn and had asked for nothing in return. Vilifying her friends was simple enough—they were right bastards, the both of them, when they chose to be, and I had no trouble saying so—but I couldn’t, in good conscience, vilify her. I wouldn’t defend her, but I wouldn’t insult her, either. She deserved that much.

Instead, I tried to convince Draco that the best revenge would be to stampede all over the remaining Quidditch season. The first game was over, but the season was not, and Slytherin still had the chance to perform quite respectably, if the team was firmly taken in hand. Hunter, wise lad that he was, dropped out of Hogwarts altogether. The rumor mill had it that he told his parents he would feed himself to a Hungarian Horntail before going back to that school. At least a Hungarian Horntail wouldn’t hold any _personal_ grudge against him and would simply kill him for food or pleasure instead of revenge. This meant that Draco had a new keeper to break in, and a second chance to prove just what kind of captain he could be. 

One thing was for certain: Gerald Butler, the fifth year who took over the keeper position, would not suffer the same fate as Hunter. No boy susceptible to attacks of nerves would have taken the position in the first place, with Draco in charge and on the warpath. I took to going to the practices, just to keep Draco reined in. It was good for his image to be perceived as slightly unstable with the tendency to hex now and ask questions later when it came to the Quidditch team, but sometimes he took the role a bit too far. Keeping an eye on him was practically a full-time job, especially if you factored in the time I spent watching him in a far more intimate manner: watching his tongue tracing my skin, watching his eyes roll back in pleasure as he buggered me senseless, watching him harden at the sight of me waiting for him in the shower…etc. Yes, I spent a great deal of my time watching Draco Malfoy, and I wouldn’t have given up a minute of it.

Between Draco and class, it was very easy to keep myself distanced from Granger. I may have spent more time than I should’ve looking her way, and I might have seen, in my careful surveillance, that she spent a fair amount of time looking my way as well, but I certainly didn’t do anything about it. When I finally did speak to her again, it was the first week of December, and it would have been much longer than that, if I had had any sort of choice. But then Professor Vector taught us (or rather, _tried_ to teach us) magicontorqueo approximation. Viewed objectively, it was a fascinating concept since it allowed one to find the mathematical impact of spells on one another. When calculated accurately, the equation would gauge the magical force of a spell, telling exactly how much damage it could cause, along with how much force was required to counter it. Objectively yes, it was brilliant. Practically, however, it was a damn nuisance. I hit an intellectual brick wall. No matter how hard I tried, I simply couldn’t grasp the concept. 

In my defense, it wasn’t an easy concept to grasp. Vector hadn’t even taught it to previous years. But there had, lately, been pressure on the test makers to raise the standards of the Arithmancy N.E.W.T.s, and Vector assured us that magicontorqueo approximation was bound to show up. In class and out, I struggled with my books, trying over and over again to cement the concept in my mind. It didn’t work. The ‘Poor’ that I received on the test was proof that Professor Vector was kind and charitable. I honestly deserved the score ‘Dreadful,’ if not ‘Troll.’ There was a small consolation in the knowledge that my test paper still had the second highest score (everyone else, with one notable exception, was as lost on the concept as I was) but the sop to my ego did nothing to make the situation any better. For the first time in my Hogwarts career, I started to get really worried.

The only non-negotiable standard Gringotts insisted upon for candidates in their International Magical Commerce program was an Outstanding score on the Arithmancy N.E.W.T. The goblins were surprisingly open-minded when it came to personal history of applicants, as long as the end result was in line with protecting their investments. Practically speaking, the goblins didn’t care if you had a reputation as a mass murderer who cannibalized his victims as long as your accounts were always in order and your Arithmancy skills were beyond reproach. If I wanted placement in the IMC program, doing badly in Arithmancy simply wasn’t an option. 

Unfortunately, the problem of magicontorqueo approximation did not go away. Vector insisted we would all need to master it before the class could move on. Naturally, getting all of us to master it proved to be more difficult than expected. Vector was an excellent teacher, but no matter how many times we went over the concept, there was something about it that I simply couldn’t grasp. Neither could (almost) anyone else. Vector finally ran out of patience. Magicontorqueo approximation was important, but it wasn’t the _only_ important concept we needed to learn, and we were already running behind schedule. We were told that there would be one more test on the concept, and if we hadn’t grasped it by then, we would have to learn it on our own time. 

During dinner that night, I got owls from the other two Slytherins in the class along with three Ravenclaws offering me a variety of extravagant bribes in exchange for tutoring. There was nothing terribly surprising about that (though some of the bribes that were offered were…interesting, to say the least. It looked like the rumors that Lisa Turpin only spread her sought-after thighs for academic pursuits was accurate after all). I did have the second highest score not only on the test, but in the class as a whole, and I had been known to give tutoring assistance in the past, if the price was right. Slytherins, naturally, felt most comfortable coming to me for assistance, while Ravenclaws sought me as the lesser of two evils. They didn’t like turning to a Slytherin for assistance, but it was better than admitting a Gryffindor was smarter than them. 

Yes, Granger was the one with the highest score, in the class and on the test. In spite of her reputation as a know-it-all, she wasn’t one to go around parading her scores, but when Vector wrote the grade distribution from the test up on the board as always, there were four who scored a T, five who scored a D, one who scored a P and one who scored an O. It wasn’t hard to figure out who the O was, even if Vector hadn’t made it glaringly obvious by giving Granger a study period while the rest of us tried to hammer magicontorqueo approximation into our heads. While the rest of us moaned and groaned over how bloody _buggered_ we were on the whole concept, she sat in the corner, calming working on her N.E.W.T. revisions. 

Circe knew, I was tempting time and time again to simply take the bicorn by the horns and ask her for help…but I always decided against it. Part of it was pride: I hated to admit that there was an Arithmancy concept that I couldn’t figure out on my own. Everyone knew that Granger wanted to go into mediwizardry and that Arithmancy was just a hobby for her. There was simply no _sense_ in her being better at it than me. Another part of it, admittedly, was Draco. Though I was still aggravated by the way he had overreacted the last time I had a tutoring session with Granger, I hated the thought of the two of us getting into a fight like that again. 

But the largest part of my reluctance, the part I was barely able to admit even to myself, was fear. Though our sole tutoring session had been brief, Granger had been able to really make me think, and not just about Transfiguration. The night after my tutoring session with her, I had a nightmare about the destruction of the orphanage that she had described. The images were…unpleasant, not to mention damnably persistent. That was the first night that I had that nightmare, but it wasn’t the last. And when I pictured the children running from the orphanage only to be consumed by flames as they stood in the street, the children I pictured were always the same: a girl with bushy brown hair, and a platinum blond boy. 

I had decided years before that staying out of war business was the wisest move I could make. Voldemort’s ambitions didn’t concern me; they were none of my business, so why should I care? I had little to lose whichever way the tide turned, and little preference for one leader over another. Yes, it was said that Voldemort was somewhat violent, but the man was unquestionably brilliant while Fudge was unquestionably a fool. Was one really better than another? Probably not. Without anything to gain or lose, I was perfectly content to sit on the sidelines and let others battle it out without my assistance. Granger, to my dismay, made me question my complaisance. That was the real reason that I avoided speaking with her again. I didn’t need someone shaking up the way that I looked at the world. 

Alas, I was finally forced to admit that there was nothing for it but to ask her for help. There was no way on earth I was going to be able to learn the concept without assistance, and it was blatantly clear that Granger was the only one who could assist me. I had not forgotten how easily she was able to walk me through the rabbit’s foot flowering spell. No one had ever had such success in tutoring me in Transfiguration before. I could only hope that she’d do half as well in Arithmancy. 

I shan’t go into details—the recollection of the tantrum Draco threw when I told him I would need to approach Granger for help is _not_ a memory I like to revisit—but suffice it to say, he wasn’t pleased. We ended up cutting class and holing up in an empty classroom so that he would have all the time he needed to rant and rave, and I would have all the time I needed to talk him down. It took a while, but I finally managed to get him convinced. Like it or not, this was a subject he simply _couldn’t_ tutor me in. Smart though he was, he had never taken Arithmancy. I made it clear that Vector’s tutoring wouldn’t do any good since if I hadn’t learned it the first fifty times the old bat tried to teach it to the class as a whole, it wasn’t likely that another tutoring session with her would make any difference. Granger was literally the only option. Reluctantly, Draco gave in, though he did insist that we choose to meet in some public place, instead of in an empty classroom where she’d only have to cast a silencing spell and she could do Merlin only knows what to me with no one any the wiser.

I knew he wanted a public place so that he could spy on us without being conspicuous in his presence, but at that point, I was so relieved that he had given in that I wasn’t going to argue the point. I even let him help me compose the note to her asking for her help which we brought up to the Owlery together. Granger received the note during lunch and penned a response immediately, agreeing to meet me in the library that evening. Surprise, surprise, when I was ready to leave to meet her in the library, Draco suddenly remembered a book he needed to get for himself and walked there with me. Leaving him behind in the stacks where he’d have a nice view for spying, I approached the table where I had spotted Granger’s unmistakable hair.

“Granger,” I stated, announcing my presence.

“Zabini,” she replied, smiling up at me. “Right on time. Go ahead and pull up a chair so we can get started.” I obeyed, seating myself next to her, and pulling out my Arithmancy notes from the past few weeks.

“Alright,” she said, “where do you start to have problems?”

“Well,” I answered, “I’m alright until we have to draw the diagram.”

She looked at me in surprise. “That’s the first step.”

“Yes,” I agreed. “It is.”

She laughed. “Well then, I suppose I have my work cut out for me.” 

“I understand how to work the formulas,” I explained. “It’s fairly basic once you have it all charted out. The diagram is what trips me up every time. I know how to solve it once I have all the information, but I’m still stuck on actually _getting_ the information.” 

She nodded her understanding. “I thought that might be your problem,” she stated. “It’s where I had trouble with it at first, too.” She dug through the scrolls in front of her until she found what she was looking for, which she then placed in front of me. “Let’s start with this,” she suggested.

Looking down, I saw her notes on hypergeometric binumination, a concept we had learned a few months back. “Wrong notes, Granger,” I corrected her, thinking she had just grabbed the wrong scroll. “These don’t have anything to do with magicontorqueo approximation.”

“They don’t?” she asked innocently. “Are you sure?”

I snorted. “Quite sure. Hypergeometric binumination is a concept I actually understand.”

“Good!” she replied, beaming at me. “Explain it to me.”

I opened my mouth to argue with her about wasting time on a concept that we weren’t there to study, but she smiled at me so cheerfully and expectantly that I decided to humor her. “Hypergeometric binumination finds the probability of an event occurring, given certain criteria.”

“What kind of event?” she pressed.

“Any event. As long as you know the criteria, you can find the probability for any event.”

“Really? Prove it,” she countered. Pulling out a spare piece of parchment, she scribbled down some variables before shoving it in front of me. “Show me.” The problem she had written out was actually fairly simple, and it only took a minute for me to solve the equation and hand it back to her.

“Excellent!” she said, scanning over my work. “Now what if I wanted to know the probability over a _range_ of criteria, instead of just the one?” She added a quick note onto the parchment, showing which range she wanted me to find. Obediently, I solved the problem for the range. 

“And if I asked you to make a diagram of the results?” she questioned. I complied. “What if I wanted the diagram to show this?” she asked, drawing a new graph and labeling the axes. I thought about it for a minute; it was a twist that we hadn’t gone over in class, but with the information that I already had, it was fairly easy for me to solve. I filled in the graph and looked up at her triumphantly.

“Very good!” she praised. “And if you were to analyze the diagram for these factors, what would you find?” She scribbled something underneath the diagram I had drawn and handed the parchment back to me. My jaw dropped.

“That’s…it’s…I don’t understand. How?” I stammered.

“It’s magicontorqueo approximation,” she answered. “And you certainly do understand. You just solved for it, didn’t you? Look at how the pieces come together.” She tugged on the parchment so that it lay in between us. Going through what we had done step by step, she showed how understanding the way that the factors interrelated made it possible to line them up properly. It made sense. My mind hadn’t twisted around it completely yet, but what she said all pieced together. Hecate help me, it made a _lot_ of sense.

“But then…” I questioned.

She grinned at me. “Try this,” she said, pulling out the parchment with the test questions from our previous test. Mentally going through the steps she had shown me, I sketched out the diagram as best I could understand it and worked my way through the problem. When I was done, I held my breath and passed the parchment over to her. She responded by pulling out her test answer scroll and lining it up next to the parchment. Barring the differences in handwriting, they matched, point by point.

We worked through the rest of the test problems together. Some where harder than others, and even after I understood the concept, there were still some of the finer points that were capable of tripping me up, but Granger was infinitely patient, never giving me the answer, but always questioning me through it bit by bit until it finally made sense to me. By the time an hour had passed, I had worked my way through the entire test scroll successfully, and simply couldn’t stop grinning.

Couldn’t stop, that is, until I looked up into the stacks. Draco was there with a scowl on his face so fierce, I wondered it if would leave wrinkles. I bit back a sigh of annoyance as my smile quickly faded. I had forgotten he was there. To be honest, I had been a bit hopeful that he _wouldn’t_ be there any longer. I knew he’d want to check on us at the beginning and make sure that Granger didn’t try anything, but I had hoped that once he saw that we were alright, he’d leave. Apparently, I was wrong.

Once he realized he had caught my eye, he started gesturing to his watch. I knew what he was trying to say: he wanted me to tell Granger that we had spent enough time studying, and that it was time for me to leave. I shook my head. I wasn’t finished yet. Yes, we had gone over the concept and I had understood it, but there were still one or two of the variations that were giving me a bit of trouble, and I wanted to go over them again. Granger was busily writing practice problems to drill me on them, which fortunately kept her from noticing the interaction between Draco and me. Shaking my head at Draco again, I deliberately turned my attention to Granger who was putting the final touches on her practice problems.

Twenty minutes later, I had finished the problems, and felt that I had a strong enough grasp on the variations to be able to handle the studying on my own from that point. Yet again, my glow of triumph faded when I glanced back into the stacks and saw Draco there again. He pointed more urgently to his watch this time, mouthing the words ‘Time to go, _now_.’ The words didn’t have to be spoken aloud for me to hear the anger behind them. He wanted me the hell away from Granger _instantly_ , and he wouldn’t accept any more delays.

I tried to hold on to my temper—honestly, I did—but it was too hard. I loved Draco and that gave him a great many rights over me, but he did _not_ have the right to tell me how I was allowed to spend my time. I was doing nothing wrong, and I was in no danger. I was, in fact, having one of the most productive study sessions of my life and I wasn’t going to end it just because Draco felt like being even more overprotective than usual.

“Well, I guess that wraps it up,” Granger announced from beside me. “I think you’ve got a strong grasp on the subject now.” Turning my attention over to her, I noticed her packing away her Arithmancy scrolls and pulling out a stack of small, flat squares of paper instead.

“What are those?” I blurted out, curious in spite of myself.

“My Ancient Runes flashcards,” she answered. “Muggle thing,” she explained when she saw the confused look on my face. “Lots of muggle students use them to practice vocabulary words. They sell these small cards blank in stores. I had my parents send them to me. I write the rune on one side and the meaning on the other and go through them over and over until I’m certain I know which rune goes with which meaning. I know I’m ready for the test tomorrow, but it can’t hurt to drill them a bit more.”

Sneaking a brief glance over, I saw that Draco was still in the stacks with the same hard scowl on his face. It would have been easy enough for me to simply pack up my bags and join him. Granger had made it clear that we didn’t need to go over any more Arithmancy, and there was really no reason for me to stay anymore. But I suddenly became determined to teach Draco a lesson, to show him that he had no right to say how much time I could spend with someone other than him.

“Could I try it, too?” I asked Granger, gesturing to the cards. “I need to get in some more studying, as well.”

She looked surprised but handed over half the stack of cards willingly enough. I turned my focus on to them, flipping through the tidy bundle in Granger’s neat handwriting, drilling myself on the familiar symbols. Perhaps the muggles had the right idea on this concept. Figuring out the runes for myself and then being able to double check it as simply as turning over the card was helping to cement the symbols in my mind. 

In the new silence between Granger and myself, broken only by the sound of cards being shuffled, it was easy for me to hear Draco’s grunt of annoyance as he realized I wasn’t going to be joining him, followed shortly thereafter by the sound of him stomping out of the library.

I dare say he expected me to come after him. I usually did, after all. I usually dropped everything that I was doing and every personal preference I might have had to chase after him. I usually altered my schedule and shifted my priorities and gave in to him on every point where he bothered to make a stand, letting him determine my life, because he cared about everything so very much, and I didn’t really care about much of anything, except for him. Yes, that was what I usually would have done. But this time I didn’t. I was tired of Draco treating me like an infant who needed his permission to walk down the hallway unescorted. I was sick of allowing his overt paranoia regarding Gryffindors and his over-protectiveness of me to allow him to choose for me who I spent my time with. 

“Is everything alright?”

Granger’s voice broke me out of my thoughts, and I looked over at her with a sheepish smile. “Everything’s fine. Sorry, I just got a bit lost in my thoughts.”

“Are you tired?” she asked sympathetically. “I tend to forget that most people like breaks when they study. I promise I won’t be offended if you want to leave.”

She was giving me a very easy out. All I had to say was that I _was_ tired, and ready to stop for the evening, and she wouldn’t think twice about me leaving. But I _wasn’t_ tired and I _didn’t_ want to leave. I wanted to stay.

“I’m fine,” I protested. “I want to keep going over the slashcards.” 

“Flashcards,” she corrected gently, smiling at me. I smiled back, and then we bent over our flashcards again.

We continued until Madam Pince kicked us out of the library. I barely made it back to the dungeons before curfew. I found Draco asleep, or at the very least _pretending_ to be. I considered trying to wake him. Our roommates slept like rocks, and no one would notice if I slipped into Draco’s bed for a few minutes for a kiss-and-cuddle make up session, especially with the automatic silencing spell Draco had charmed into the curtains to activate whenever he shut them. I decided against it. I was tired, Draco was angry, and neither of us appeared to be in the mood to deal with the other. A good night’s sleep was, I was convinced, the best course of action to take. Draco and I could have it out in the morning. Climbing into bed and shutting my own curtains (charmed for silence as well; Vince snored damn near loud enough to wake the dead) I quickly fell asleep.

Chapter 7

The row I anticipated was surprisingly long in coming. Of course, it came as no surprise to me that it didn’t happen right away. Draco would never want to make a scene in front of our roommates. As expected, he maintained an icy silence toward me while we got showered and dressed and all the way through breakfast, as well, walking to Ancient Runes after breakfast in the same _direction_ as me, but not _with_ me. No, definitely not with me. As soon as we cleared the doorway of the classroom, he turned and spoke to me for the first time all day.

“I suppose you’ll be wanting to sit with your _friend_ ,” he sneered, nodding in the direction of the Gryffindors in the class before making a beeline for the Ravenclaws (we were the only Slytherins in the class) to get as far away from me as possible. That simple statement was enough to set me off again.

The night’s sleep _had_ done me good, and I had woken up in a much better state of mind toward Draco in general and our fight in particular. As aggravating as the little bastard was, I did love him, very much, and if our argument had taken place early in the morning while I was still in a good mood from my dream the previous night, I might have been willing to forget how annoyed with him I had been, and possibly even apologize to him for upsetting him. But after what he said, all my aggravation from the previous night returned with a vengeance. If he was going to _send_ me to the Gryffindors, then I’d damn well _go_ to the Gryffindors, and if he had a problem with it, he’d have no one to blame but himself. Driven by sheer frustration to breach the lion’s den where Slytherins feared to tread, I approached Granger’s table. 

“Is this seat taken?” I asked, forcing myself not to hiss the question through gritted teeth. It wasn’t _her_ fault Draco was being a prat, and I didn’t want to take it out on her.

She smiled up at me cheerfully. “Help yourself!” she replied. “Want to take another pass at the flashcards before the professor shows up?”

At that, I managed a smile and nodded my head. She passed over half her pile to me, and we flipped through them in comfortable silence. I felt Draco’s white-hot stare at the back of my head but ignored it until the professor walked in and class began.

We were free to leave as soon as we were finished with the test. Granger and I finished at about the same time, and it seemed like the most natural thing in the world to gather our books and head out into the hallway together, discussing the different parts of the test as we headed to the Great Hall. The flashcards had been very helpful, and I was eager to tell her so, which led to a discussion of other classes where she had found studying with flashcards to be useful. It was an unusual experience to simply chat with a Gryffindor. There was none of the verbal judo or hidden innuendo that you found in Slytherin conversations, and none of the guarded wariness that typified my interactions with Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs. It was…surprisingly nice, just talking to Granger with no agenda and no motive, like we were friends.

Naturally, the urge to make our conversation appear as _more_ than chatter between friends coincided with the realization that Draco was walking behind us. He didn’t say anything, but I recognized the sound of the cough he had been trying to shake for the past day or two. 

Granger didn’t appear to notice my reaction to the cough behind us since she was busy digging through her bag, looking for the Herbology flashcards she wanted to show me. Draco wasn’t the only thing she didn’t notice as she tripped over a loose flagstone on the floor, stumbling slightly. Fortunately, I caught her before she could fall.

“Thanks,” she replied, blushing slightly as she steadied herself on her feet. “Sorry, I guess I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going.”

“If you want to fall all over me, I won’t object,” I teased. “I get that a lot, you know.” Her blush darkened at the flirtatious tone in my voice which had been absent up until now, but to her credit, she didn’t let it throw her for long.

“Good to know,” she retorted. “When I chose to throw myself at a man, it _is_ a comfort to know that he’ll catch me.” Her hands lay on my upper arms from when I had caught her, and she squeezed them slightly, winking at me before pulling away. Now it was _my_ turn to blush. Girls had been known to flirt with me before—hell, girls had been known to do much _more_ than simply flirt—but Granger was different. She wasn’t pulling me into a dark corner so she could play with a Slytherin without running the risk of being seen. She wasn’t lacing her words with hidden meaning or trying to press her body against mine so she could coax me into being another notch on her bedpost, after which she’d ignore me completely. Instead, she was simply teasing me, openly and utterly without any real agenda…as if we were friends. Sensuality and seduction, I could handle. Friendly playfulness was new. Quite new. New enough to make me blush, which made her laugh.

“So Slytherins _are_ capable of blushing! How _interesting_! Or are you just an anomaly, Mr. Zabini?”

I pretended to pout. “I have to _tell_ you that I’m special? You weren’t able to figure that out for yourself?”

The cough behind us turned into a grunt of annoyance, and Draco bumped into me _hard_ as he pushed past us on his way to the Great Hall. This time, Granger was the one who caught me.

“T-thanks,” I stammered as I pulled myself out of her arms. 

“Just returning the favor,” she replied cheerfully. “Out of curiosity, what do you suppose are chances are of getting the rest of the way to the Great Hall _without_ throwing ourselves at each other anymore?”

“Only one way to find out,” I responded, holding out my arm for her to take. She accepted it, sliding her own through it and letting me lead her the rest of the way to the Great Hall, chattering away about something or other. To be honest, I wasn’t paying too much attention, still focused on trying to figure out what was happening between us. Were we becoming friends? It was hard to say. I didn’t really have any of those. There was Draco, of course, but it had been a very long time since we had _just_ been friends, if we ever were. If this was friendship, I thought to myself as I escorted her into the hall and all the way to the Gryffindor table, tentatively returning the brilliant smile she gave me as she seated herself, it was nice. Quite nice.

The warm little glow carried me through lunch but faded abruptly afterwards when Draco made his move as I exited the Great Hall, grabbing my arm and dragging me into an empty classroom practically before I even knew what had happened. By the time I had my wits about me again, the door had been closed, locked, and warded with a silencing spell, and Draco was turning to face me again, anger hardening every line of his face, giving him an uncanny resemblance to his father. That was when I knew I was really in trouble. Draco wasn’t just upset, he was _angry_. Merlin help me.

I’m not sure quite what I expected. Oh, I knew that Draco was furious and that it would escalate into one of our usual blazing rows that occurred with such tiresome regularity. That was par for the course. I also knew that I’d get that same lecture about how it wasn’t safe for me to be around Gryffindors (totally ignoring the fact that _nothing_ had happened to hurt me, and that he had literally _pushed_ me into Hermione’s arms) and also, no doubt, that I had no business making any decisions on my own regarding with whom I spent my time. Draco’s opening argument, however, caught me more than a little off-guard. When he turned to face me, he hissed out the last thing I _ever_ thought I’d hear Draco say. 

“You _fancy_ her, don’t you?”

“What?” I asked, genuinely confused. For a moment, I wondered if this wasn’t about Hermione after all, and he was accusing me of mooning over some other girl. It was unfathomable that he would accuse me of fancying _Hermione_ of all people.

Draco and I had never had what you might call an exclusive relationship. As far as boys went, he was the only one for me and I knew I was the only one for him, but we both enjoyed (quite _thoroughly_ enjoyed) the company of women, and weren’t about to deny our tastes for some silly standard of monogamy. Draco loved me, not them, so why should it bother me that he liked to get his rocks off in a girl now and again? Hell, I liked it as well, so I was in no position to judge. The only real commitment that we had to each other was that girls were for fun, but the two of us were forever. I didn’t care if he shagged that tart Greengrass who always seemed to have one eye on the Malfoy fortune and the other on Draco’s admittedly delectable arse, just as he had no problem with me sneaking it a little extracurricular activity during a study session with Turpin (who had promised to reward me quite handsomely for helping her study magicontorqueo approximation). 

Draco had the habit of teasing me over my conquests, but he never resented them any more than I begrudged him his playmates. So if Draco was angry over my response to some girl then that meant that he thought there was a girl that I actually _liked_ instead of simply desiring. For some reason, he thought there was a girl I really _cared_ about, and the idea threw me for a loop. My whole life, Draco was the only one I ever loved. How could he doubt that? 

“Have a pensieve handy?” Draco asked in a snide tone of voice. “I could show you the stupidly _besotted_ look on your face last night _and_ today when you were with her.”

“Draco, last night she showed me how to work a concept I’ve been trying to learn for _ages_! Of course I was grateful!”

“And today?” he pressed. “ _Flirting_ with her and _groping_ at her in plain sight like that! What were you _thinking_?”

“Fuck this,” I grumbled under my breath, pulling out my wand. Draco didn’t pull his, and if I wasn’t so aggravated with him, I might have softened at the further proof that he’d never defend himself against me, never risk hurting me even if it meant that he might get hurt, himself. As it was, however, I focused my anger at the door, lifting the spells that Draco had placed to lock it, and storming over to it.

“I’m not going to spell a scarlet A on my forehead just because you feel like having a tantrum,” I stated, more to the door than to Draco since I didn’t trust my restraint if I turned to look at him. “I love you, _only_ you, and you know it; but that doesn’t mean that you have the right to dictate my actions every second of every day. If you can’t deal with the fact that I’m not some sort of exclusive toy that only you are allowed to touch, then that’s your problem, not mine.”

Without giving him a chance to respond, I stormed out the door and into the hallway. I was barely even aware of where I was going as I charged through the hallways. When I came back to myself, I was standing in front of the library, and even through my anger I had to laugh at the trick my subconscious had played on me, leading me back to the scene of the crime. Heading back to the table where I had studied with Hermione the previous night, I tossed my bag on the table and threw myself into a chair.

Draco thought I was in love with Hermione. The thought was so ridiculous, it nearly made me laugh again. Draco knew that my taste for love affairs ran to snarky, seductive, blond-haired Slytherins. Why on earth would he think I’d fall in love with a bossy, aggravatingly brilliant, bushy haired Gryffindor?

Of course, Draco knew that I valued intelligence since he, himself, was nearly as brilliant as Hermione. (After the tutoring sessions with her and seeing the way that she approached magic from different angles to understand it, I started to wonder if Draco wouldn’t be every bit as magically advanced as her if he hadn’t been raised so strictly to only approach magic in specific ways.) Their intelligence was something I had always rather admired about both of them. They shared that sort of easy confidence with magic that I, despite my pureblooded upbringing, always lacked. Watching them, _either_ of them, cast spells was poetry in motion, just the way magic was supposed to be. It was no wonder that Draco was the one who came closest to challenging Hermione’s position as top of the class. 

They shared something else as well, something that drove Hermione to be the top of the class and drove Draco to risk his neck continuously on the Quidditch pitch. That sort of fierce commitment and determination was an intrinsic part of both of them. Though they each expressed it differently, it boiled down to a sort of inherent code of honor that made them determine to follow through on every commitment they made, paired with a passion that made them loyal and devoted to any cause they chose to follow.

Really, they were more alike than I had ever bothered to realize, in spite of their superficial contrasts. If she hadn’t been a Gryffindor and a muggleborn, and if he hadn’t been a Slytherin and a Malfoy…they might have been friends. Draco’s accusations, unfounded though they were, started to make a bit more sense. The girls I usually liked to play around with had little in common with Draco. I never looked for a girl I could really connect with, just someone who could give me a good time, with no strings attached. Hermione was no man’s good-time girl. Time that I spent with her might have had the potential of actually turning into something other than a one-night stand, if I wasn’t so in love with Draco. And while I was annoyed that he would question my commitment to him, I could see why Hermione would be the girl who would make him question.

“Is this seat taken?” a teasing voice questioned from beside me. Startled, I looked up into Hermione’s familiar brown eyes.

“N-no,” I stammered, trying to regain my composure, “it’s not taken. Help yourself.”

“Alright then, I will,” she replied with an easy grin, seating herself and immediately beginning to dig through her bag until she had pulled out parchment, a quill, and a very large book about Potions. With her usual uncanny tact that I was only beginning to grow accustomed to, she worked in silence, leaving me to my thoughts.

Those traitorous thoughts continued to revolve around her. She was quite pretty, I realized with something akin to shock. She hadn’t always been, and I had grown accustomed to dismissing her as plain, but ‘plain’ certainly didn’t describe her anymore. Yes, she was _quite_ pretty, and there was no denying it. Draco had noticed, obviously, or he wouldn’t have been so jealous. A random thought passed through my mind wondering who else had noticed. What boys out there spent their days (and their evenings as well, no doubt, the perverts) pining over the Head Girl?

I hadn’t realized the way that my eyes were lingering on her face until the sound of a strangled cough, muffled as if someone was trying to hide it, caught my ears. Looking up, I spotted Draco in the stacks. I felt my heart wrench at the look on his face. It was a mixture of surprise, hurt, and a sort of bitter resignation that I had seen before, too many times, and never wanted to see again. It happened every time Draco lost or failed to get something he was expecting, something he had _earned_ just because Dumbledore liked showering points on Gryffindors for being fat-headed fools, or because the wizarding community assumed automatically that anyone named Malfoy was beneath their contempt, or because Lucius was an arse who didn’t appreciate his son. It was the look that he never showed to anyone but me because he never wanted others to be able to see when he was hurting. I never wanted to be the one to put that look on his face. My anger melted away as I realized that underneath Draco’s ridiculous jealousy and accusations was a very real fear that he would lose me—that I, the one person he had always been able to count on, wouldn’t love him anymore. 

Suddenly, I couldn’t bear to be angry with him anymore. Gathering up my stuff, I made my excuses to Hermione and headed for the door. I knew where he was going; he always went to the Quidditch pitch to fly off his hurt. That was where I found him twenty minutes later, after a quick detour to grab a broom. 

He was flying like a maniac, of course. He never _could_ manage to fly in a straight line unless there was a goal he wanted to reach at the end. He loved flips and turns and hairpin maneuvers that tested his broom to its limits. I was, at best, an adequate flier, with no taste for stomach-turning twists, but I followed him as best I could, trying to catch up with him. He was in the middle of a dangerous back flip when he spotted me, stopping instantly (as soon as he turned himself upright) so that I could reach him.

“What were you thinking trying to copy me?” he scolded as I approached. “You could have gotten hurt, attempting those turns without practicing them first.”

“Getting to you was more important,” I answered, hoping he’d hear the sincerity in my voice. Apparently, he did, because his expression softened fractionally.

“I’d have thought you’d prefer to stay cozily ensconced with Granger instead of chasing me out here,” he replied cautiously.

I chose my words with care, not wanting either of us to end up angry again. “If I wanted to study, I would be,” I replied. “But what I really wanted was to be with you. Only you.” The next part was a bit harder. “I know it may have seemed like I was…flirting a bit with her, earlier today.” Draco snorted and opened his mouth to retort, but I cut him off before he got a chance. “It was for _your_ benefit, you know. I wanted to pay you back for being so overprotective. It never occurred to me that you would think I was actually interested in her romantically. It never occurred to me to be in love with anyone but you.”

Draco swallowed hard and looked away. “Sometimes I wonder,” he sighed. I fought off a shiver of dread. Wondered what? Wondered why he bothered with me? “I wonder why you put up with me at all.”

I let out a sigh of relief, and couldn’t stop the big, goofy grin that I knew was covering my face. “Well, that’s easy,” I answered. “It’s because I love you.”

I doubt I’ll ever quite get used to Draco’s speed on a broom, especially when he’s going after something he really wants. But as long as the thing that he wants is me, I’ll never complain. His broom was next to mine before I had the chance to do anymore than blink, and only seconds later, his hand was gripping the back of my neck, pulling me into a kiss. I was panting by the time that Draco pulled away, and my balance on the broomstick was wavering.

“We should land,” Draco murmured in my ear as he planted a series of soft kisses along my neck, making it damnably hard for me to concentrate on what he was saying. “I have to put my _stick_ away.” I moaned at the sound of his voice and moaned again when he pulled away, but eagerly followed his lead in landing on the pitch, following him like a puppy as he led the way to the locker room. 

“You know,” he purred, his hand snaking over to caress my arse, “it’s been a long time since _we’ve_ had a study session together.”

“You’re right,” I agreed, somewhat breathlessly. “Is there anything in – oooh!” I gasped as Draco’s hand slipped underneath my arse and between my legs to run a skillful finger against my balls, “—particular that you’d like to study?”

“Transfiguration might be nice,” Draco replied, his innocent tone belied by the movements of his wickedly knowing hand. “I saw the most delightful little bit of transfiguration done the other day that I was hoping you could teach me. It was a spell to turn a locker room bench into a bed. And look, how convenient! Here’s a locker room!”

I smirked at him before shoving his back against the wall of the locker room door, pinning him against it with the weight of my body. “Convenient, indeed,” I retorted, rocking my hips against his, panting with the effort it took not to devour his mouth. 

“Let the lesson begin.”

Chapter 8

“I see your bodyguard has returned,” Hermione murmured over our Arithmancy notes, quietly enough that her voice didn’t carry past me.

We were having another study session in the library. They had become pretty common occurrences lately. She really made an excellent study partner. There was no denying that I understood concepts better when I went over them with her, and she seemed to like having company that actually _cared_ about studying and wasn’t just there to humor her. Although, I suppose I should consider myself lucky that Potter and Weasley weren’t fonder of studying with Hermione in the library. If there were there with her then they probably would have seen to it that _I_ was _not_. I wasn’t Draco, but I was still a Slytherin and I was certain that they wouldn’t want me around Hermione, especially since I was sure that at least one of them was in love with her. Probably Potter. Lucky bastard. He got everything else, Boy Wonder that he was; it wouldn’t be much of a stretch to believe that he’d get the girl as well.

“Bodyguard?”

“Does Malfoy prefer the term Masked Avenger?”

I bit back the urge to laugh. He probably would like the title, at that. Draco loved being seen as dashing and adventurous. I was firmly convinced that that was at least half of the reason that he wanted to pursue a career in curse breaking. Yes, the subject matter interested him, and he certainly had the intelligence and skill to pull it off, but there was more to it than that. With his family’s fortune, he could have easily devoted his time after school to maintaining the family business and harassing the ministry, as his father did, watching his money and his power grow; but there wasn’t much that was terribly dashing about that. He craved adventure, with himself as the hero, or the villain. If he could have been a pirate with a short sword and a large hat in our all too modern world, he would have been. Swash, swash. Buckle, buckle.

“How did you know he was there?” I asked, instead of answering her question. “He promised he’d be discreet this time.” I had utterly given up on convincing Draco that he didn’t need to spy on our study sessions. I was tired of fighting with him, (and all too willing to give into his ‘persuasions’ in the locker room after I showed him that lovely little transfiguration spell) so I finally agreed to let the point drop. All I asked now was that he at least _attempt_ to be subtle about it, and that he wouldn’t do anything to try to force me to cut off the sessions early. 

“He is being discreet,” she conceded. “At least, what passes for discreet for a Malfoy. But you should probably tell him that if he really wants to go into undercover work, he should invest in hair dye. Or a hat.”

She nodded slightly in the direction of the Arithmancy stacks. Glancing over, I caught a glimpse of the torches reflecting off of platinum blond hair. This time, I couldn’t hold back a soft snicker. As usual, she was absolutely right. For Draco to pull off discretion with that head of hair would be a hard sell, at best.

“Does he still think I’ll attack you?”

I never actually told Hermione that Draco was being overprotective and spying on our study sessions out of fear for my safety, but she picked up on it quickly enough. I guess she had gotten used to people being suspicious of her. There wasn’t a year that went by that someone didn’t try to prove that she was taking some sort of potion to score higher than everyone else, or that she was sleeping with the professors, or that (this one was my favorite) she had hexed Potter _and_ Weasley to make them think that they cared about her. She took it all in stride, mostly out of habit, I suspect. She knew that Draco didn’t trust her around me, but fortunately, she never made a big deal about it. 

“I think he’s more worried that your boyfriend will show up and grind the Nasty Slytherin into powder for daring to pollute the Gryffindor Goddess with his presence,” I replied in answer to her question. That was true, as well. Draco finally seemed to accept that Hermione (no doubt for nefarious reasons of her own) wasn’t going to attack me, but he hadn’t quite given up on the fear that Potter would pitch a fit if he saw us together. Truth be told, I hadn’t quite given up on that fear, myself. Fortunately for me, the boy seemed to avoid the library like the plague.

She snorted. “Lucky thing, then, that I don’t have a boyfriend.”

I stared at her for a moment in surprise. “You’re not with Potter?”

“Me? With Harry? Heavens, no. I’d never do that to him.”

I looked at her incredulously. What on earth did she mean by that? “You make dating you sound like some sort of chore.”

She laughed. “Actually, that wasn’t what I meant when I said that, but nonetheless, you do have a point. How many boys would want to date a walking encyclopedia of facts from ‘Hogwarts: A History’?”

I could think of a few. Hell, I could think of _more_ than a few. She honestly had no idea just how attractive she was, and just how many Hogwarts boys looked her way whenever they got the chance. But if she wanted to be oblivious to the attention she drew, then that was fine by me. I didn’t like the idea of some lovesick swain cutting our study sessions short. Things were better as they were. The other part of her statement concerned me more. “What _did_ you mean?” I pressed.

“Oh, about me and Harry?” I nodded. “Harry needs my friendship,” she explained, matter-of-factly. “He counts on it, depends on it always being there. If we ever dated, when things went sour, as they inevitably would, all our mutual friends would have to take sides and it would be months before we’d all be comfortable around each other again. He wouldn’t have the friendship he depends on when he really needed it. I couldn’t do that to him. I want to make things _easier_ for him, not harder. He needs me in his life as a friend, not as an ex-girlfriend.”

“What makes you so sure it wouldn’t work for the two of you?”

She shrugged. “We don’t fit. It’s like spells.”

“Spells? Your non-existent romantic relationship with Potter is like…spells?”

She smiled sheepishly. “You know I have odd habits of association. But it _is_ like spells, honestly it is!”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “Alright, alright. Convince me. How is it like spells?”

“Remember what I told you, back in that first tutoring session, about the parts that fit together to make magic work?” I nodded. “A relationship is the same,” she continued. “The way two people see each other, want each other, care about each other—they’re all the puzzle pieces in the relationship. When all the pieces come together properly and fit together, the love that results from it is magical. But if the pieces don’t come together properly, then the magic can’t happen. Harry and I don’t fit. Not like that. We care about each other very much, and we fit together beautifully as friends, but I don’t _want_ him like that, and he doesn’t want me. If we tried to make a go of it, it would turn out disastrously, and it’s not worth the risk.”

“So you’re telling me that you, The Girl Who Actually Has a Shot, isn’t attracted to The Boy Who Lived?”

“Guilty as charged.” She laughed again. “‘The Girl Who Actually Has a Shot’? Does anyone actually call me that?”

I smiled. “People say all kinds of things. And most of it is probably as ridiculous as the idea of you and Potter together. Anyone who doesn’t think you’re with Potter assumes that you’re with Weasley, and that isn’t true either, is it?” I wondered absently why I had to put so much effort into making my voice sound normal, but I didn’t let myself think about it for long. I was far more interested in hearing her answer.

“Ron and I definitely aren’t together,” she answered, causing me to sigh a bit in relief.

“Your puzzle pieces don’t fit?” I asked. “You’re not attracted to him?” I didn’t know why it was so important to me to make sure that she _wasn’t_ involved with her best friends, the way the rest of the school had always assumed she was, but suddenly I felt like I couldn’t keep breathing if I didn’t get an answer. “You don’t want him like that, either?”

“Oh no, I’m very attracted to Ron,” she stated breezily, seeming completely oblivious to the way my jaw dropped a bit at her answer. “He’s so…explosive. He’s passionate and protective and temperamental and enthusiastic. He loves with everything he’s got, and would do, literally, _anything_ for someone he loved. He makes me feel alive.” She smiled softly and I felt the sudden surge of nausea. Weasley was all wrong for her, couldn’t she see it? He could never make her happy. “But we still don’t belong together,” she concluded quietly.

“You…you don’t?”

“Nope,” she said, trying (and failing) to maintain a cheerful tone of voice. “We don’t. It’s almost as if we fit, but we don’t match. Close, but no cigar.”

“What?”

“Muggle phrase. Sorry. Anyway, you know how if you’re working on a really big puzzle, you try to put together chunks of the picture at a time?” I nodded slowly, wondering where she was going with this. “And you know how sometimes you’ll spot two pieces that _seem_ like they go together? You put them up against each other, and they fit. But the more you look at them, the more you can see that they don’t _match_. One of them belongs near the middle, and the other belongs somewhere in the lower left-hand corner. They _fit_ but they don’t _match_. Ron’s everything I could want in a boyfriend. We fit together quite well, really, in all the ways that truly matter. But we don’t match. I could never make him happy, and if we tried to give it a go, we’d both end up miserable. It’s a pity, but there you have it. He’s not my puzzle piece.”

“So who is your puzzle piece?”

Her eyes locked with mine for a moment before she looked away, blushing slightly. “It’s possible I haven’t found him yet,” she answered. “Then again, it’s also possible that I’m not meant to fit to anyone. I might just be a one-piece puzzle.”

“No,” I stated firmly, surprising myself even as I spoke. “You’re not meant to be alone. That much, I’m sure of.”

She smiled softly. “We’re not all as lucky as you, Zabini. You found your puzzle piece when you were…fourteen? Fifteen?”

I’m sure my jaw dropped. I didn’t know how to respond. For a second, I wasn’t quite certain I still knew how to _breathe_. Did she know? Did she _really_ know that my puzzle piece was right there in the library with us, attempting to hide in the arithmancy section, or was it just a lucky guess?

She placed her hand on top of mine, squeezing it softly. “It’s alright,” she whispered. “I know that you and Malfoy have been very careful to keep it all hush-hush. You have my word that I _have_ not and _will_ not tell a soul.”

“How did you know?” I finally managed to gasp out.

“It’s what I do, Zabini,” she replied, grinning just a bit. “I break things down until I figure out how they piece together. Malfoy is your puzzle piece. The two of you fit together, _belong_ together. It wasn’t hard to see that.”

“You really think so?” I asked, unable to keep the wistfulness out of my tone. I knew that Draco and I fit together. There was no denying that. But she said we belonged together. Was that really true? Would Draco and I ever have a happily ever after when he wouldn’t even admit to anyone other than the two of us that we were together in the first place?

“I _know_ so,” Hermione answered. “So it must be true. I’m a know-it-all, you know. That means that I’m always right.” She grinned at me, and I rolled my eyes.

“Cheer up, Zabini,” she ordered, punching me lightly on the shoulder. “There’s no reason to be gloomy. You love him, he loves you, and that’s all there is to it. What’s not to like about that?”

“You’re right,” I replied with a weak smile. Draco loved me and I loved him and what could possibly go wrong?

Famous last words, of course, as time would show.

Chapter 9

It wasn’t long after that when things started to go…strange for Draco, and for Draco and me, as a couple. We still loved each other, nothing had changed from that end of the puzzle-piece picture, but the rest of it wasn’t nearly so clear. Draco was keeping things from me, things that were upsetting him, and it was starting to bother me more and more. Something had set him off, and he wouldn’t tell me what.

It started when he got a letter from his father. It wasn’t unusual for Draco to get letters from home, but they were always, _always_ from his mother. During the school year, Lucius Malfoy seemed content to pretend that his son was beneath his notice. The only times he deigned to contact his only child and heir was when Draco had monumentally screwed something up. After the ice-cold howler he had sent after the Gryffindor Quidditch match, I dare say that all of us in the Slytherin common room were hoping _not_ to hear from him again. This letter wasn’t a howler, but Draco still went pale as he took the scroll from his father’s owl. 

Draco read the letter immediately. To my relief, he seemed a bit confused by its contents, but not unduly upset. He shrugged off any questions about it, saying that it wasn’t important, and since it didn’t seem like the letter had done any harm, I was willing to let the subject drop. 

The complication came that night when I woke, with no visible reason, around two o’clock the next morning. I’d had a nightmare: fuzzy, indistinct shapes crowding in on me, suffocating me, separating me from…I couldn’t tell who. I had the feeling it was Draco, but I couldn’t be sure. Call it a leftover from being raised by servants who were little more than superstitious peasants, but I never quite managed to shake my fear of bad dreams. I knew it was silly to be frightened of something as ephemeral as a dream, but I also knew that I had to see Draco, had to touch him and know that he was alright, before I’d be able to sleep again. 

Simple in theory, but more complicated in reality when I discovered that Draco wasn’t in his bed, and the sheets were cold, signaling that he hadn’t been there for quite some time. Trying to shake off my uneasiness, I went back to my bed to grab my wand and headed upstairs to the common room.

I hadn’t realized I was holding my breath until I released it in a sigh of relief when I heard Draco’s voice as I approached the room. My smile faded into a frown as I grew close enough to be able to distinguish what he was saying.

“But surely someone else, someone more personally committed would be better for something this…delicate,” Draco was protesting. I could feel my frown deepening. I knew that tone of voice. He was trying to hold back his emotion, trying to seem unconcerned, and doing a piss poor job of it. Who the hell was he talking to, and what on earth had they said to him to evoke this kind of response?

“I personally made these arrangements,” a second voice echoed through the room, making me tense automatically. Lucius Malfoy? At Hogwarts? Impossible! And yet…I was certain I knew that voice, not to mention that _tone_ of voice. “Are you suggesting that my plans are in any way inadequate?”

“Of course not, Father!”

I couldn’t deny my curiosity any longer, and crept over to the common room door, cracking it open just enough to be able to peak inside. Expecting to be confronted with the image of Lucius Malfoy’s imposing figure, I was surprised to see the room looking almost empty.

“You know I’d never question your plans,” Draco continued, pulling my attention in the right direction. I let out a sigh of relief when I spotted my love kneeling on the floor in front of the fireplace. Floo call, then. That would explain what the letter was about—Lucius must have sent Draco a time to be by the fireplace so they could talk without any interruptions. But the answers I found created a whole new set of questions. What was it that Lucius needed to discuss with his son that was too delicate to be conveyed by owl? Why did it have to be discussed at two in the morning, guaranteeing that no one would be around to overhear? What were the plans that he had mentioned, and what was Draco’s role in them?

“I believe I have made myself perfectly clear, have I not?”

“Yes, Father,” Draco answered quietly.

“Good. Then you may expect the delivery—” 

Alas, in my eagerness to overhear what was being said, I leaned too hard against the cracked-open doorway. The hinges were deliberately squeaky, to discourage the younger years from attempting to spy on the upper years after their curfew, and they groaned with protest as the door was pushed open further. I was lucky that I had been able to hear as much as I had without triggering the squeaky door, but my luck had apparently run out.

“Someone’s there,” Draco hissed at the fireplace. “I understand, Father. I’ll await the delivery, as you said.” 

Without waiting for Lucius’ response, Draco slid fluidly to his feet, drawing his wand instantly and aiming it at the door.

“Who’s there?” he questioned imperiously. “Show yourself this instant or face the consequences!” Gone was the emotionally scattered boy who had been on the verge of pleading with his father only moments before, and in his place was one of the strongest and most confident duelists of our generation.

“It’s me,” I announced quickly, stepping into the shaky light of the fireplace, which no longer shone green. Obviously, the floo connection had been terminated, and good riddance, so far as I was concerned.

Draco lowered his wand and slumped down into a chair. “Hello, love,” he managed to say, with a weak smile. “How long have you been standing there?”

“Just a moment or so,” I answered. “Woke up from a nightmare and couldn’t fall back asleep. I saw that your bed was empty and thought you might have had the same problem, so I came down here to join you.”

Draco held out his hand to me and I crossed the room, seating myself on the arm of his chair. His hand reached up to trace the lines of my face. “I heard voices,” I said tentatively. “Who were you talking you?” 

Draco grimaced slightly but didn’t pull his hand away from my face. “My father,” he answered, his tone bitter. “He wanted to lecture me about my ‘duty to the Malfoy line’ again. I don’t want to talk about it.” 

Shifting gears abruptly, he tugged on my arm, pulling me down to sit beside him in the wide chair. His hand returned to my face, circling my cheekbones and brushing the hair out of my eyes. “I’m sorry you had a nightmare,” he whispered. “Do you want to talk about it?”

I shook my head. “I don’t really remember it,” I lied. Draco made soft, comforting noises as he continued to caress me, pulling me into his arms.

“Did the charm turn green?” I asked, my voice muffled slightly against his chest.

“Hmm?” Draco asked. “Oh. I don’t know. I haven’t looked. Why?” His voice grew a bit mischievous. “What did you have in mind?” His hand slipped out of my hair to trail down my chest, rubbing up and down sensuously. 

“In mind?” I asked, wondering if I was still asleep and simply having a very bizarre dream. “Nothing! I just meant—” I was planning to say something along the lines of how I had meant that he wasn’t usually so affectionate unless he was certain that we would be left alone. Truth be told, Draco was rarely so affectionate at all. When others were around, he was very careful to keep our relationship under wraps, and when we were alone, he was usually more interested in making the most of our time. Simple cuddling and touching, the way most couples did, was something we rarely explored, especially on Hogwarts grounds.

Yes, I was _planning_ to say something like that, but I didn’t really get much of a chance. It was a bit difficult to speak with Draco’s tongue down my throat, and more than a bit difficult to think of anything coherent to say when his hand slid the rest of the way down my chest to dip inside my pajama bottoms. I was, in fact, quite prodigiously proud of myself for managing to speak at all when Draco pulled his mouth away from mine to latch on to my neck.

“Is…it…safe?” I gasped out when Draco started removing my clothes, tossing them carelessly to the side, in a way that he had _never_ done before in the common room.

“I don’t care,” Draco retorted, wrenching off his own clothes and dropping to the floor where he could stretch out, taking me with him. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” I replied, mentally resolving not to ask any more questions that night.

Draco and I had been together for what sometimes felt like forever, but never was I more certain that he loved me then I was that night. It was impossible to doubt it with the way that he touched me, filled me, loved me to the point of bursting and beyond. When it was over and we were sated and sticky and _I_ , at least, was utterly content, he lay bonelessly on top of me, and I felt tears trickle out of his eyes and on to my bare skin. Wisely, I didn’t say a word; I just held him until the tears passed. By the time he let me see his face again, his eyes were dry. He only spoke to cast a cleaning charm as he helped me to my feet and passed me my clothes. We dressed silently and stumbled back down into the dormitories, climbing into our beds where I, at least, fell into an instant, dreamless sleep. When I woke the next morning, I might have thought it was all a dream if it hadn’t been for the bruises left by his possessive fingers on my hips that I found when I awoke.

We didn’t speak of that night again, not for lack of trying on my part. I wanted him to tell me what was wrong, since it was so obviously upsetting him, but he flatly refused to discuss it. And after the turn that his behavior took following that night, I decided it was best not to push him. His temper, always sensitive, suddenly developed a hairpin trigger. He tried to control it around me, as always, but some of the younger years learned to dread his caustic words even more than the possibility of his hexes. 

He was more affectionate with me than he had ever been before. He still wasn’t into PDAs, but he was far less concerned with the possibility of being caught when he pulled me into quick snogs in dark corners. But all the affection in the world couldn’t hide the fact that he was far more distant than I had ever seen him. He seemed to weigh his words carefully before speaking, even when we were alone. I knew that he was keeping something from me and while I certainly enjoyed the kisses he used to distract me whenever I brought the subject up, it still galled me that he wouldn’t simply tell me what was wrong. 

The situation came to a head during a perfectly normal conversation in the common room with some of the other seventh years about what everyone planned to do for Christmas. Theo was going to visit his brother in Prague. Vince said that he and Greg were going with their parents to the Alps. Tracey, who always liked to feel like she had one up on everyone else, informed us that her parents were taking her to Paris to shop for her trousseau. Apparently, her husband-to-be, a student at Beauxbatons, would be meeting them there. Pansy said that she’d be staying at Hogwarts over the break, and I said that I was thinking of doing that, as well.

“Staying?” Draco interrupted, his face paling slightly. “Why would you want to stay here when you could be going home to Italy?”

I threw him a concerned look but didn’t want to question him when others were around. Instead, I simply shrugged. “Mum and Dad won’t be there this year, and most of the servants have off for the holiday. Seemed kind of boring, knocking around an empty house, so I thought I’d stay here instead.”

“Maybe you should reconsider,” he suggested, his voice forcibly light. “Your villa is much nicer than these drafty dungeons, even if it is boring to be there alone.”

“Is that your way of angling for an invitation, Draco?” I asked, wondering what he was getting at. “You know you’d be more than welcome, and if I had the prospect of some company, I wouldn’t mind going.”

The sound Draco made was a good imitation of a laugh, but I knew him well enough to know that it was forced. “I only wish I could,” he replied. “But I already told you that I have a project I need to be working on over the break.”

“You couldn’t work on it from Italy?” I questioned.

“No.” His voice left no room for argument. “I need to use resources that they only have here, so it’s looks like I’m stuck for the break. But really, Zabini, you should reconsider going home.”

“Merlin Draco,” Pansy pitched in with her high, nasal voice. “It’s not _that_ bad staying here. You and I are both doing it, aren’t we?” She shot him what she probably thought was a discreet wink, which had approximately the subtlety of a hippogriff in a china shop. Pansy never did have much of a gift for tact.

I bit my lip to keep from grimacing in disgust. Was Draco hoping to get something going with Pansy over the break? Was that why he was so eager for me not to be around? Mentally, I shook off the idea. It wasn’t possible. Pansy was a complete and utter slag, and even before she became The Girl Who Slept Around, Draco had never had much tolerance for her inane prattle. He’d never have the patience to put up with her as a lover, no matter how lonely or bored he got.

But _something_ was going on, and that was for certain. Mentally, I cursed Hermione Granger. Before I knew her, I had been easily content burying my head in the sand and only seeing what I was told to see. But she had gotten me into the habit of putting two and two together and coming up with my own conclusions, and I couldn’t question the results that were now staring me in the face. Draco was always deliberately vague when he spoke about the ‘project’ that he needed to do over the break, but I knew damn well that it wasn’t for any of his classes. The only other possibility was that the project was something for his father—something secretive that couldn’t be discussed openly, forcing Lucius to arrange for a floo call to the Slytherin common room in the middle of the night so he could give the details to his son. 

Death Eater business was the only logical conclusion, especially if Pansy was involved as well. Pansy was a twit, but her father ranked fairly high in the Death Eater organization, so far as I was able to tell, and the girl had, somewhat indiscreetly, bragged that she was slated for initiation after the end of term. Was this some sort of pre-initiation task? If so, why was Draco so upset? He had been planning to join the Death Eaters for as long as I could remember, with the same calm acceptance that most people show when they plan for the sun to come up in the morning. It was a foregone conclusion that didn’t seem to cause him any particular excitement or dismay.

Two things were clear to me. The first was that something was going to happen over Christmas break that was Death Eater related, involving Draco and Pansy. The second was that Draco wanted me to have no part of it. On some level, I suppose I was relieved. I’d have joined the Death Eaters if he asked me to, but if I could stay clear of the whole mess, then I would. The Hermione Granger part of me spoke up, saying that I shouldn’t stop until I had gotten to the bottom of the situation and figured out what was going on, but the overriding head-in-the-sand part of me chose to ignore that voice. I was better off not knowing what was going on.

“Maybe you’re right,” I said to Draco, forcing a bit of a smile. “Maybe I’ll head back to the old homestead after all.”

Chapter 10

I got in the habit of walking on eggshells around Draco. It was hard to tell what might set him off. Thanks to my caution, we managed to last a whole four days before we had another fight. It started when he actually suggested that I go and study with Hermione. That was a first. In fact, that was exactly what I said to him.

“You _want_ me to go study with Hermione?”

Draco bristled, the way he always did when anyone questioned him. “That’s what I said, wasn’t it? Need your hearing checked?”

“Why would you _send_ me to her?” I asked, genuinely bewildered.

“Well, you’re the one who had to go and make _friends_ with her, weren’t you?”

In spite of myself, I felt my temper rising. “Is that what this is about? Do you want me to stop being friends with Hermione? Because we’ve _had_ this argument, and I’m pretty damn sick of you thinking that you need to protect me from making my own decisions!”

“What the hell is so wrong with me trying to protect you?” Draco yelled.

“Since when does protecting me include pushing me away?”

“Since now!” he snarled. He turned away from me abruptly. “Go join your little Gryffindor,” he sneered with his back to me. “There’s nothing for you here.”

Stunned speechless, I numbly gathered my bag and headed for the library, on instinct. Sure enough, Hermione was there. I think she could tell just from looking at me that something was wrong, but she knew me well enough not to ask. Instead, she did the kindest thing possible, which was to act as if nothing at all was out of the ordinary. She had been going through Potions texts searching for information for an essay due the next week, and immediately engaged me in a discussion on the properties of the potion we were supposed to study.

I didn’t even like Potions, but I had to admit that discussing it with her was surprisingly restful. It was nice having someone good enough at reading my moods to know just how to calm me down. I had a small, internal chuckle over the idea that Hermione Granger had become the normalizing element in my life.

However, the more I thought about it, the less I felt like laughing. I was starting to feel suffocated from burying my head in the sand, especially when I thought of her. I had always based my allegiances on whatever made things easier for Draco, since he was the only one who ever really mattered to me, but the enigmatic Miss Granger had formed a place in my life at some point, and there was now no denying that she mattered to me as well. The Death Eater business that was coming over Christmas wouldn’t involve me, but it might involve her. It isn’t true that Slytherins are without consciences—we have them, just like everyone else—but they’re usually asleep. Mine was still groggy, but it was waking up, just for Hermione. Suddenly, I couldn’t stand to just sit there, studying and pretending nothing was wrong anymore.

“You have to be careful with the dragon bile,” she stated absently, flipping through the pages of the book, “since if you add too much, the potion will make you break out in orange spots.”

Throwing my quill down on the table, I turned to her and blurted out, “Don’t you think this is strange?”

She blinked once, then answered. “Yes, I think your jumper is strange.”

“I…what?” I glanced down. Yes, it was still the emerald green pullover I had put on that morning. “What’s wrong with my jumper?”

“Honestly, Zabini, just because you’re a Slytherin doesn’t mean that you _have_ to wear green and silver twenty-four hours a day. Green’s not your best color. You should have been a Ravenclaw. I bet you’d look smashing in blue and bronze.”

Damn her and her uncanny ability to throw me off guard and make me blush! “Not red and gold?” I retorted, trying to hide my embarrassment by teasing her back.

“Red and gold would suit you, of course,” she stated contemplatively, leaning back to take a good, long look at me, up and down, which did absolutely nothing to help me get rid of my most unSlytherin-like blush. “You have a dark enough skin tone to pull them off well. But I do think blue would become you best. It would bring out your eyes. They really are your best feature, you know.”

Getting rid of the blush was rapidly becoming a lost cause. I was growing rather more concerned with how hard a person could blush without causing physical damage to himself. Hermione, meanwhile, was grinning like the proverbial Cheshire Cat. The harder that I blushed, the more she grinned, until she couldn’t hold it back anymore, and burst into giggles.

She looked quite lovely when she laughed like that. I wondered if anyone had ever bothered to tell her that before. Even though I knew she was laughing at me, I couldn’t help but want the laughter to continue. I even found myself thinking it was almost worth the humiliation of blushing like a little girl to see the way that she absolutely lit up, inside and out, when she laughed.

I tossed a bit of crumpled up parchment at her. “Witch,” I taunted playfully. She giggled a bit more at that. “Merlin, how did we even get _on_ this topic of conversation?”

“You asked if I thought this was strange,” she reminded me, once she had gotten her giggles under control. “But you didn’t specify what you were referring to, forcing me to draw my own conclusions.”

“Liar. I didn’t _force_ you. If you didn’t understand the question, you could have asked. I certainly didn’t do anything to make you turn the conversation onto my appearance, just so you could make me blush.”

“True,” she replied, grinning. “You didn’t make me. That was just a bonus.” The most mature response I could come up with was to chuck another bit of crumpled up parchment at her.

“So are you going to answer my question or not?”

“Maybe if you actually got around to _asking_ it…”

“Fine, then! Don’t you think it’s at all strange to have a Gryffindor helping a Slytherin with his studying?”

“What’s so strange about it?”

I struggled with how to word it. “All the things we’ve gone over in these study sessions…they’ve really helped me a lot, you know.”

She beamed proudly. “I’m glad. You’re doing loads better work now in the classes we have together; I knew you could do it.”

“But that’s the thing!” I argued, forcing myself to ignore the fact that she had complimented me again. If I let myself think about it, I’d get distracted again. “I’ve gotten loads better, like you said, and it’s because of _you_. You’re…okay with that?”

She looked genuinely confused now, and I could tell that this wasn’t an act. She really had no idea what I was talking about. “Why wouldn’t I be okay with it?” she asked slowly, her forehead furrowing in concentration and she tried to figure out what I was getting at.

She looked so damn _innocent_ as she tried to think her way through the problem I had presented her. How on earth could she be that innocent, that oblivious? Didn’t she know that there was a _war_ going on? Didn’t she know that people were out there who would take advantage of that innocence, and that vulnerability, and that honest desire to help people? Didn’t she know that she was setting herself up as a target by not being more suspicious? She had let me get close to her so easily; what if she let _everyone_ get that close? Didn’t she know she could get hurt? I wanted to wrap my arms around her and hold her close, keep her safe, but that wasn’t an option. So instead, I needed to get her to see the truth.

“I’m a Slytherin, Hermione. I’m…not a Death Eater, but I won’t lie to you. There’s a chance I will be, someday. And there are lots of people I know who are already on their way to taking the Mark. Thanks to you, I’m a better and more powerful wizard than I would have been otherwise. Aren’t you worried that you’re…training your enemy into a stronger opponent?”

Her face cleared and her worried tension melted into a relieved smile. “For a moment, you actually had me worried that something was wrong.” I opened my mouth to tell her that something was wrong, _very_ wrong, but she held her hand up to forestall me, and I closed my mouth again, letting her finish.

“Zabini, you’re looking at the situation instead of trying to _understand_ it, again. I’m pleased and proud if the things I’ve taught you have made you a better wizard, but that wasn’t really the point of the lessons.” 

“It wasn’t?” I couldn’t help but ask.

She shook her head and smiled at me again. “I wanted to make you a better _thinker_. I wanted to teach you to think for _yourself_ instead of just accepting what others told you to be true.” She sighed and her smile faded a bit. “You don’t need to wear Slytherin green to remind me what house you’re in. I know that you’re a Slytherin and that most of your allegiances, both personally and as a Zabini, are tied in with the Death Eater cause. Whether you ever actively become a Death Eater or not, we’re still more likely to be on opposite sides in the future than the same one. There’s nothing I can do about that. But the one thing I can do and _have_ done is to teach you to do your own thinking. You may one day be a servant of Voldemort’s, but you will never be one of his mindless lackeys. Whatever decisions you make, you’ll make with your eyes wide open. I’m in no position to tell you which decision to make, but if I’m responsible for driving you to _think_ about your decisions instead of making them automatically, then I have to say, I’m quite proud of my work.”

She smiled at me brightly, and reluctantly, I smiled back. Sensing my need to end the moment, she abruptly changed the subject.

“Of course,” she concluded in her best lecturing tone, “if you forget to add the dragon liver, then the potion becomes highly poisonous.”

“Naturally it does,” I retorted, segueing gratefully into her change of topic, “because why would Snape want to give us a potion that didn’t have the fun benefit of _killing_ us if we do it wrong?”

“Zabini, you know that’s not true,” Hermione scolded. I braced myself for a lecture on why we should respect our professors and was thus completely off guard by the next thing she said. “Professor Snape isn’t nearly so limited; he also enjoys assigning us potions that kill us if we do them _right_.”

I couldn’t help but laugh at that. “We should have Draco studying with us,” I added jokingly. “No seventh year knows more about brewing poisons than him. He could tell us _all_ the ways we could use these ingredients to kill ourselves and each other.”

“Maybe we could get him to join us,” Hermione suggested thoughtfully. She glanced over in the direction of the Arithmancy stacks, Draco’s usual haunt when spying on us, and to my shock, I caught sight of that unmistakable platinum blond hair. He was spying on me after all. It was oddly comforting.

I laughed again, convinced that she was kidding, only to have my laughter fade when I realized that she might actually _mean_ it. 

“You can’t be serious…can you?” I asked nervously.

“I don’t see why not,” she retorted. “He needs to work on his essay just like us. It’s silly for him to waste this valuable time by pretending to read Arithmancy textbooks while spying on us.”

“Yes, Granger,” I replied sarcastically, “That’s a wonderful idea. I’m sure if you asked nicely, Draco would just _love_ to sit down and have a lovely discussion with you about potions ingredients. Maybe we could get the house elves to bring up some tea and scones which we’d eat while standing on our heads, as well.”

“Well, you needn’t make it sound as silly as all that,” Hermione sniffed defensively, clearly annoyed that I had laughed at her suggestion. “We’re not first years, you know. It’s not as if we can’t be in the same room without hexing each other. Heaven knows, we’ve kept our wands to ourselves during these study sessions, even though it’s _very_ trying to sit here and attempt to study, knowing that there’s a wand pointing at me somewhere in the room, ready to strike if I make a single wrong move!”

“I doubt he’s actually pointing his wand at you the whole time,” I replied thoughtfully. “I dare say his arm would get tired eventually if he kept it aimed for too long. Besides, Draco really prides himself on being a very quick draw.”

“Oh yes, please tell me again about his famous dueling skills because that makes me feel _much_ better,” Hermione muttered sarcastically while shuffling through her notes.

“Don’t worry, Granger,” I teased. “You haven’t done anything lately to warrant a first-hand demonstration on why he’s top ranked in our age bracket. Just don’t go asking him to join us, and you should be fine.”

Something sparked in her eyes and I bit back a groan. I recognized that look. Merlin knew, I had seen it countless times on Draco’s face. It was the look that a bull gave a red flag. It was look of challenge issued and accepted. Considering that look, I wasn’t even surprised to hear the next words out of her mouth.

“I bet you I could. I bet I could get him to join us.”

“What did you have in mind to bet?” I asked warily.

“Winner’s choice?” she suggested innocently.

“Not a chance.”

She pretended to pout. “Spoil all my fun, why don’t you. Alright then, since you _insist_ on concrete terms…how about a butterbeer next Hogsmeade weekend?”

Mentally weighing the offer, I nodded slowly. “Alright. I accept. What’s the time limit on the bet?”

“What do you think is fair?” she countered.

“End of the week?”

She grinned. “If it were up to me, I’d say end of the day. Either way works for me, really. I know I’ll win.”

“Cocky, aren’t we?”

“Confident, actually. And perceptive. Soon you’ll see how that’ll pay off.” With that, she let the subject drop, and gave no further sign that she was even thinking about it. Without so much as a pause, she slipped straight back into our discussion of potentially poisonous combinations of potions ingredients.

“But you have to remember that most poisonous ingredients can be neutralized when used in the right combination,” she stated, about half an hour later. Her voice had grown a bit louder by this point, and while I didn’t really see what had gotten her so excited about poisonous ingredients, I knew that we were far enough away from Madam Pince to avoid being scolded, so I didn’t bother to shush her. “In fact, their poisonous nature is what makes them valuable,” she continued, her voice getting even louder. “Just look at the use of belladonna as one of the central ingredients in the Draught of Peace,” Hermione concluded, her eyes sparkling, glancing over to the stacks out of the corner of her eye.

The explosion she so obviously expected came from the stacks she was watching only moments later. 

“That’s not true!” Draco announced triumphantly, bursting out from the aisle to stand next to our table. “Belladonna isn’t the poison that’s used in the Draught of Peace— _hellebore_ is.”

“True,” Hermione answered, her eyes brightening still further. I saw her nibble on her lip ever so slightly, a dead giveaway to anyone who knew her gestures that she was trying to keep from grinning. “But _why_?”

Draco stopped shock still. “Why?” he asked, clearly bewildered. “What do you mean ‘why’? You use hellebore because that’s how you make the potion!”

“What does the hellebore do?” she pressed.

“It’s a purgative,” Draco answers automatically. “In the Draught of Peace, it reacts with the powdered moonstone so that once the moonstone has brought emotional balance, the hellebore can purge away the feelings of war.”

“So how does someone feel for the first five to ten seconds after drinking the Draught of Peace?” Hermione continued. I barely managed to bite back a smirk. I recognized her patterns by now well enough to know that she was questioning Draco into a hole, but he didn’t seem to have realized it yet.

“Like they’re going to throw up,” Draco replied succinctly.

“What does belladonna do?” Hermione asked next.

Draco looked thrown by the abrupt change but responded quickly enough. “In small doses, it puts the drinker to sleep. Permanently, if they take too much.”

“So if you add two drops of belladonna after letting the moonstone simmer, then what would happen to the feelings of war in the drinker?”

“They would be…” I could tell it had finally kicked in. “…put to sleep.”

“Is there any nausea associated with belladonna in doses this small?”

“No,” Draco answered.

“How long does the hellebore work to purge the feelings of war?”

“Depends on the size of the dose and the violence of the person. It purges the violence, but it doesn’t keep it from coming back if the person is naturally violent.”

“Would belladonna produce results that were _more_ reliable or _less_?” She wasn’t bothering to hide her grin now.

Draco paused for a long moment. “More,” he answered at last, grudgingly. “But have you considered…”

That’s the point where I stopped listening. They were discussing theoretical aspects of potions that were, admittedly, way over my head. But while I couldn’t participate in the conversation, I could certainly enjoy watching it. They were _beautiful_ when they were debating with each other. They were both so passionate and focused and animated as they defend their points of view and built on each other’s ideas. The stray thought occurred to me that they seem to correspond to each other, almost like they fit together. I remembered Hermione’s description of what attracted her to Weasley, when she said that he was explosive, passionate, protective, temperamental and enthusiastic. She described how deeply and completely he loved, and the way that that passion made her feel alive, just being near him. I was suddenly struck with just how well that exact description applied to Draco.

Draco reached over me to grab a piece of parchment and quill to sketch out whatever it was he was describing to Hermione, jotting it down in quick bold lines, and handing it to her with an expression of triumph, flicking his hair out of his eyes to see her reaction. The look on his face had a familiarity that very nearly made me blush: it was the look he gave me when he leaned back on his heels and looked up at me, flicking his hair out of his eyes to see the look on my face after he had taken me apart with his mouth. It did funny things to me to see Draco look at Hermione with that expression, especially when Hermione’s face was flushed, and her eyes were sparkling with her enthusiasm for the debate. I had to close my eyes to control my reaction as my libido took over, filling me with a sudden, overwhelming wave of lust for Draco…and Hermione.

Chapter 11

It took over an hour for Draco and Hermione to reach some sort of conclusion on the point they were debating. By the time they were finished, they were both flushed and glowy-eyed, and I had given up on getting rid of my erection and had simply cast a concealment charm instead. The concealment charm would prevent embarrassment, but it didn’t reduce the discomfort of an hour long hard-on, so when the point seemed to be mostly settled between the two of them, I was quick to suggest that it might be time for Draco and I to head back to the dorms. To my relief, Draco agreed, helping me gather up my stuff into my bag while saying a surprisingly cordial goodbye to Hermione, who was staying to add some finishing touches to her essay. Draco and I left the library together, but we hadn’t gotten three steps down the hall when Draco came to an abrupt halt.

“Blast!” he exclaimed. “I’ve forgotten to grab the parchment with my notes on it. I’ll have to go back for it; I want to look into those ideas a bit more.” 

Obligingly, I turned with him to go back and fetch it, only to be halted in place by his hand grabbing my arm. “No!” he said abruptly, breaking eye contact when I looked at him in confusion. “I-I mean,” he stammered. “There’s no need to go back with me. Why don’t you go ahead back to the common room and set up the billiards table for us? I’ll be along in a minute.”

Did he think I was stupid? Or maybe just gullible? If he didn’t want me to go with him, then it could only mean that he was planning to have a conversation with Hermione that he didn’t want me to overhear. I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. They had seemed to get along so _well_. Had I gotten my hopes up too soon that the two most important people in my life might actually be able to get along? 

One thing was for certain: there was no way on earth I was going to head back to the common room now. I had to know what Draco wanted to say to Hermione. Smiling at Draco in pretended agreement, I headed down the hallway, around the corner where I stood in place for five seconds before daring to peek around it again. No one was there. Good, that meant that Draco had believed my act and gone ahead into the library. Retracing my steps, I slid silently through the library doors and hid myself in the stacks, carefully approaching Draco and Hermione.

Draco’s constant spying on us during our study sessions had had one very positive effect: it had made me put a lot of thought into the best way of spying on someone in the library without getting caught. Draco had been rather hopeless at it, and I had spent a fair amount of time hypothesizing over what would have improved his attempts. Standing _here_ instead of _there_ , maybe. Staying low instead of upright. Picking out the shadows. It had never been more than a mental exercise for me to imagine how to spy properly, but it certainly came in handy. I was able to slide into an excellent position that allowed me to see most of what they did and hear _all_ of it while remaining unseen.

I wasn’t quite in time to hear the question that Draco was obviously asking Hermione, but I was just in time to hear her response. It was a good thing that I found a secure position, and even better that the position had me kneeling on the ground, otherwise I might have fallen over when I heard what it was, exactly, that Draco was asking Hermione.

“Malfoy, are you asking me my _intentions_?” Hermione asked, her voice sounded dumbfounded. At any other time, I would have been pleased to see her caught so off-guard, but this wasn’t the moment for appreciation. I was too bewildered, myself. What on earth was Draco doing?

“If you want to put it like that, then yes,” Draco replied tightly. “I want you to give me your word that you aren’t planning on using Blaise.”

“Using him for _what_?” Hermione asked.

“Do I need to draw you a diagram, Granger?” Draco drawled. “Don’t muggle parents make any effort to teach their children about the birds and the bees?”

Hermione flushed darkly. “A diagram won’t be necessary, Malfoy,” she retorted crisply. “Unless it’s a diagram from the mediwitch after you’ve gotten your head examined, explaining that some sort of trauma has made you delusional. What on earth are you going on about?”

“A diagram of my head won’t help show you and Blaise how to make your own little know-it-all witches and wizards, but I daresay Blaise can teach you everything you need to know about that. He’s not used to relationships, though, and that’s where you have the upper hand. I want to make sure you’re not planning on screwing him over. That’s what I came here to ask.”

I barely managed to bite back a groan of embarrassment. Draco was definitely taking overprotective to the next level. Who did he think he was, my mother? My _pimp_? Was he honestly trying to set me up with Hermione? Why would he do something like that?

“I-I’m not…” Hermione stammered, “I mean, I couldn’t…” She took a deep breath, which did all sorts of lovely, interesting things to the front of her blouse (and from the look on Draco’s face, I could see that he had noticed that as well) and spoke again once she had organized her thoughts. “Blaise and I are not and _will_ not be in a relationship other than friendship, Malfoy, and certainly not in a relationship that leads to making little witches and wizards, so I fail to see what difference it makes how I _might_ treat him if we were.”

“What makes you so sure?” Draco countered.

“Why would he want me when he has you?” Hermione blurted out. She blushed and started stammering and rambling a bit again, in that adorably endearing way. “Y-you should know, I won’t say anything, about the two of you being together, I mean. Not t-to anyone, not even Harry and Ron, I promise! And don’t get angry at Blaise for telling me, because he didn’t. I figured it out for myself. But he…he loves you, Draco, and I know that you love him. I really think that the two of you are meant for each other. You obviously belong together, and I care about Blaise far too much to ever do anything to get in the way of that.”

“That’s not your decision to make,” Draco replied quietly.

“What?”

Mentally, I echoed her question. This conversation was making me more nervous by the second. Draco was getting at something, but I still didn’t know _what_. Why was he trying to fix me up with Hermione? Why would he want me to take a lover, a _permanent_ lover, other than him? I knew that Draco had his insecurities, but I thought that we had worked past them when it came to Hermione. He couldn’t think that I wanted to replace him, could he? Or was it…(I swallowed hard, steeling myself just for the thought of it)…was it that he wanted to replace me, and wanted me out of the way first?

Draco dodged the question, taking a different tack instead. “Blaise is important to you, you admitted it yourself. Don’t you think he deserves better than some junior Death Eater like me?”

“There is nothing better than being with the person that you love.”

Draco groaned. “Enough with the clichés! This isn’t a romance novel, Granger, this is real life! Don’t you want Blaise to be happy? Don’t you want what’s best for him? Merlin knows that I do, and I know damn well what’s best for him is not me! It _might_ be you.” 

“No, Draco,” I whispered before I could stop myself. He didn’t hear me. It took every ounce of determination I possessed not to jump up out of my hiding place and grab hold of my lover. Once I had a grip on him, I wasn’t certain if I would kiss him or smack him up the backside of his head, but I ached to get to him and knock some sense into him, make him realize that there was no such thing as a best case scenario for me that didn’t include him in my life.

Draco seemed to run out of steam and slumped slightly. “I can tell that he’s interested in you,” he stated softly. Hermione opened her mouth to protest, but Draco held up a hand to cut her off. “Don’t bother trying to deny it. You don’t know him like I do. I know the signs. He’s interested, but he’s stubborn: he doesn’t want to admit it yet. I can…help you with that.” He straightened up a bit. “But I won’t unless I have your word that you’re serious about him. I’m not going to turn him over to you just to get hurt.”

“Why?” Hermione whispered.

“Why what?”

“Why are you trying to set me up with your lover?” Hermione demanded.

“Why can’t you just answer the question?” he growled in annoyance. “It’s such a _simple_ question! What’s the problem? Are you afraid to admit that you want him? Don’t bother trying to deny it; it’s so _painfully_ obvious. You practically _moon_ over him when you think no one’s looking, you light up head to toe when he joins you here unexpectedly, and you completely lose your train of thought whenever he touches you. Admit it, Granger, and don’t try lying. You goody-goody Gryffindors give yourselves away every time,” Draco sneered, daring her to contradict him.

“I wasn’t going to lie,” Hermione replied firmly, all traces of hesitation or stuttering vanishing completely. “Yes, I’m falling in love with Blaise. I have been for quite some time now, long before he approached me for the first time. I care for him more deeply than you’d be able to imagine, for all the good it may do me. But that doesn’t matter. I can’t answer your question as to whether or not you can trust me not to hurt him, because I know I’ll _never_ have the chance. It’s not enough for me to love him. In order to hurt him, he’d have to love me, and he doesn’t. He loves you.” 

Draco and I both froze at her words. I can’t imagine what Draco was thinking. My own thoughts were barely coherent to me. Hermione was falling in love with me? _Had_ been falling in love with me since _before_ the first time I spoke to her? Wanted me, but didn’t think that I’d ever want her? She…I…I didn’t know what to think…except that I was glad. I was glad that she loved me, and I was glad that I was as important to her as she was becoming to me. Could I love her? I wasn’t sure. Want her, yes. No problem there. But love her? I closed my eyes to clear my head, and the image from before slid back in front of my view. Draco and me and Hermione, a writhing tangle of flesh, making love to each other. Yes, making _love_. Just thinking about it felt so good, it almost hurt. I wanted that with Hermione. But I wanted Draco to be there, too.

“ _Because_ I care about Blaise, and _because_ I would never want to see him hurt, I’m going to give you a piece of advice,” Hermione continued. “Don’t let him go. Whatever your issues are, get through them, but don’t give up Blaise.”

“You don’t know what you’re asking, Granger,” Draco muttered in a low voice that made it sound like he was in pain.

“Do you love him?” Hermione asked.

“Don’t push me,” Draco hissed.

“Do you _love_ him?”

“That’s not what this is about!”

“ _Damn_ you Malfoy, do you love him or not?”

“Yes, I love him! Gods below, Granger, he’s the only thing in the world that I…” Draco cut himself off, taking a deep breath. “Don’t you dare question my love for Blaise,” he hissed. “You have no idea what you’re talking about. It’s _because_ I love him that I’m doing this. Don’t act as if you understand the situation when you _don’t_!”

“Then explain it to me! Tell me why it would be best for Blaise to be deserted by the person that he loves!”

“You wouldn’t understand! You have no idea what it’s like to have your father, your own _father_ —” Draco’s voice cut off abruptly and I saw every muscle in his body go tense as he tried to refasten the rein on his emotions. “When Blaise comes back from Christmas break,” Draco stated in a low, intense voice, “it’s highly unlikely that my love for him or his love for me will still be an issue. When that time comes, for the love of _God_ , Granger, can I trust you to take care of him?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Good,” Draco spat out, before storming into the aisle. Moments later, I heard the library door slam shut behind him. Hermione looked pale and shaken in his wake, but soon gathered her self-composure sufficiently to gather her books with shaking hands and load them into her bag. A minute or so later, she left the library as well. I remained slumped in my hiding place, trying to process what had just occurred. 

I wish I could say that none of it made sense to me, but that just wasn’t true. Hermione had trained me far too well, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t stop the pieces of the puzzle from fitting together in my mind. I had already figured out that something Death Eater related was going to happen over Christmas break, but now I knew it was much more than a simple project. It was something big. Something drastic. Something that Draco wasn’t certain he would survive. He had a role in it, assigned to him by his father in the late-night fire conversation I had accidentally overheard, and his role meant that he had to be there for it, whether it killed him or not. But _I_ didn’t have to be there, and that was what mattered to him. He wanted me out of danger, and he wanted to be sure that I would be taken care of, no matter what happened.

In light of that, his behavior for the past week made a lot more sense. Of course he would push me away a bit if he wanted me to get used to not having him around, and of course he’d be more affectionate if he wasn’t sure how many chances he had left. Of course he’d want me out of the way over Christmas break, and of course he’d push me to spend more time with Hermione, and of course he’d make sure that she had my best interests at heart. And of course I wouldn’t let him get away with it. 

Draco had a lot of damn nerve thinking he was the only one in our relationship willing to make sacrifices for the other. If Draco had developed a conscience when it came to me then there was nothing to stop me from developing a conscience when it came to him. I wasn’t about to leave him alone to face whatever it was that he was so certain would kill him, and if he thought that he could make that decision for me, then he definitely had another thing coming. Rising to my feet, I headed out of the library and down the hall. I needed to find Snape. I had to let him know that my plans had changed, and that I would be _staying_ at Hogwarts over Christmas.

Chapter 12

When debating appropriate Christmas presents for Draco, ( _presentable_ presents, that is) it had occurred to me that he might benefit from some sort of guide to spying. For a supposedly subtle Slytherin, he had positively no knack whatsoever for maintaining a poker face and pretending that the events surrounding him held no interest for him. Though he held his Defense Against the Dark Arts book in front of him and pretended to be studying with suitable concentration, a first year Hufflepuff could have told you that he was really paying attention to the study session right next to him, between Hermione and myself. The way that he snuck looks at us every five seconds or so might have been a hint. Another clue was the way his eyebrow twitched whenever one of us said something that he disagreed with. For another, he opened his mouth at least half a dozen times, obviously on the verge of throwing in a comment of his own before managing to stop himself. His deception was not aided by the fact that his book was upside down.

I knew he was aching to join in, and I had, in fact, devoted the last half hour to goading him into it by constantly bringing up subjects I knew he loved to debate. Alas, my success had been limited to more twitches and careful glances and the opening, followed by the shutting, of his mouth. It was discouraging, of course, but I hadn’t given up hope. No one knew how to push Draco’s buttons like I did, and I knew I’d hit the right one sooner or later…hopefully sooner rather than later.

I couldn’t get the thought of Draco, Hermione, and me together out of my head. Worse still, I couldn’t get the images out of my mind, and I knew that they’d drive me crazy before long. I had left denial behind: I wanted them, _both_ of them. I wanted the three of us to fit together in every way possible. Better than that, I wanted to show the two of them (stubborn fools that they were) that we _already_ fit together, if they could just see it. We belonged together; I was sure of it. Now all I had to do was convince them. The first step would be getting the two of them to interact again, which was why I was working so hard to trick Draco into joining us. Well, that plus the fact that he and Hermione were damn sexy when they argued, and I wanted to watch.

Of course, in lieu of live footage, I still had my fantasies to turn to. In fact, I blame the fantasies for what happened next. Under normal circumstances, I would have put more thought into my responses when talking with Hermione, but I was so distracted by the mental image of Hermione with a mouthful of Draco’s cock that I absent-mindedly answered her question about my Christmas plans with the truth: that I was planning to stay at Hogwarts over the break.

Big mistake. Big. Huge. On the bright side, I got my wish. Draco joined in the conversation, with a vengeance.

“You’re _what_?!” he screeched, standing up from his chair so fast that it tipped over behind him with a crash. Hermione, clever girl that she was, obviously sensed that the sound effects were far from over. She immediately grabbed her wand and cast a quick sound bubble spell before Madam Pince came to see who had let a dying jackal into the library. Fortunately, we were tucked away in the back corner of the library with no other students in sight, so Hermione and I were the only ones even aware of Draco’s outburst. We were also the only ones subjected to the rant that followed after.

To be honest, I didn’t really listen. Oh, I caught scraps of it. 

“…do you ignore _everyone_ who tries to help you or is it just me?” 

“…would it _kill_ you to listen to me when I …”

“…told you in _small, simple_ words to go home …” 

“…help if I tattooed it on your forehead?”

I knew Draco had the tendency to get nasty when he went on one of his rants, and I had long since learned to block the majority of it out. It wasn’t his words that I focused on; it was his face. He was scared, _really_ scared, so scared that it almost looked like he was in pain. I’d never seen _anything_ scare him like this before, not even his father. Instead of making me feel sympathetic towards him, the fear just made me angry. Oh, I was definitely angry at whatever or whoever (and I had a pretty shrewd idea of who was responsible) had done something to make him this scared, but I was also more than a little angry at him. He was supposed to love me, wasn’t he? How could he let something hurt him, scare him like this and not share it with me? How could he hide something so essential away from me? How dare he presume to send me away when he so obviously needed me? When he said that if I didn’t go home of my own free will, he’d hex me into a box and send me there himself, my temper snapped.

“You’ve no right,” I hissed. “No right at _all_ to tell me what I’m going to do when you won’t even tell me what’s wrong!”

Draco literally growled at me. “I _love_ you, you bastard; doesn’t that give me some kind of right?”

“Right to _what_? Right to tell me how to live my life? Right to make all my decisions for me without even consulting me? Right to treat me like a two year old who can’t know the real reasons why things are done?”

“Right to protect you, you idiot!”

“From _what_?”

“From dying! _Damn_ you, Blaise!” Draco yelled. “Why the hell did you have to pick _now_ to be a stubborn fool when all I’m trying to do is save your life! Do you have any idea what will happen if you’re here when the Death Eaters come here this Chris—” All of us froze so completely, that for a moment, I thought time had stopped. Draco’s voice cut off abruptly, and his wildly gesticulating hands stopped in place as his mouth hung open slightly and his eyes went almost comically wide with shock over the information he had just confessed. 

None of us moved for several moments. I’m not certain any of us breathed. Draco triggered us all into live again when he made the first move, slumping into a desk chair and looking remarkably like a puppet whose strings had been cut. 

“What is it, Draco?” Hermione asked, her voice soft and tentative. “What’s going to happen over Christmas?”

“The Death Eaters are going to attack Hogwarts,” Draco replied, his face blank of emotion, his voice utterly flat and lifeless.

“Why?”

“For Potter, of course. There’s a ritual the Dark Lord wants to perform on New Year’s Eve—don’t ask me what ritual, because they haven’t told me. I haven’t ‘earned’ my right to know the secrets yet; I’m only told what I need to know to make myself useful. But they’re afraid to perform the ritual while Potter is still alive. They knew he’d be staying here over Christmas and decided that it would be the perfect time to get rid of him once and for all. Most of the professors will be away on holidays, and most of the students as well. There will be hardly anyone able to put up any kind of defense when they attack.

“How are they going to get in?” Hermione pressed when Draco fell into silence.

“Emergency exits,” Draco answered obediently. “The ministry installed them over the summer. The students aren’t supposed to know about them, but the professors were informed, and the school governors. Some of the parents kicked up a fuss about what would happen to their children if Hogwarts was attacked. Fudge wanted to shut them up, so he had emergency exits installed that could only be opened from the inside. If Hogwarts ever was attacked, students could escape without having to get through to the front entrance. Dumbledore preferred the idea of emergency portkeys, but he was overruled. The exits are charmed to open only for Hogwarts students and staff, but once they’re open, anyone can go in or out.”

“How many are there?”

“Seven, but for the invasion, we’re only supposed to open three. It’s risky enough having three students wandering around to the emergency exits, most likely in the middle of the night, without getting caught, even if we do have invisibility potion.” 

“Invisibility potion?”

“Yes. My father sent me three vials in a package. It only lasts an hour, but that’s long enough for us to get to the exits and get them open. Once the Death Eaters can come in, it won’t matter if we’re invisible anymore. My father will send an owl on Christmas eve, telling me when all the Death Eaters are in position. I’ll distribute the potion to two other students and take one vial for myself. The three of us will split up and go to our chosen exits. We’ll let in the Death Eaters and assist in the attack. When the dust clears, if we’re still alive, we’ll be immediately inducted into the Death Eaters.”

“Who are the other two students?”

For the first time since spilling the beans, Draco showed some true signs of life. His expression tightened, leaving behind the slack lines of resignation and shaping into something firmer. “Pansy’s one of them,” he answered. “I tried to tell my father that she wasn’t exactly the most reliable girl I’ve ever known, but apparently her father vouched for her, and his word carries a great deal of weight with the Dark Lord. Besides, it’s not like there were that many other options. Greg, Vince, and Millicent aren’t bright enough to pull off that kind of thing without giving themselves away, and Theo, Tracey, Daphne, and Elise don’t have strong enough ties to the Death Eaters. It would have to be someone who could be relied on completely to follow orders, meaning it would have to be someone with strong Death Eater allegiances. Anyone unaffiliated might chicken out at the last minute, but when you know they’ve got a wand on your loved one, ready to punish him if you don’t follow through, you obey orders.”

“Who’s supposed to open the third door?” I asked, forcing myself to breathe. Draco had just discounted every seventh year Slytherin except himself and Pansy, who I already knew were part of the plan…and me.

Draco’s face softened a bit as he turned to look at me. He didn’t bother responding to the question. He could tell I already knew the answer.

“I tried to talk him out of it,” he said. “I should have known better than to think my father would ever listen to my opinion. If anything, I think it made him more determined that you would be the third person.”

“But I don’t have any ties to the Death Eaters,” I protested.

“You have ties to me,” he replied, his voice cracking a bit on the last word. “And my father knew it. He knew this whole _fucking_ time.” Draco’s voice grew harsh, “I thought I was keeping you safe from him by not letting anyone know that we were together; the bastard was laughing at me all along.”

“What did he say, Draco?” Hermione asked, bringing Draco back to himself with a gentle hand on his arm. It worked. He calmed down noticeably.

“He said that I was to use my ‘influence’ over you to convince you to open the third door. I honestly think he imagined you’d jump at the opportunity. After all, you’d be ‘rewarded’ with initiation if you survived.”

“And that’s when you decided that you’d talk Blaise into going away over the vacation?” Hermione questioned. Draco nodded in response.

“Pansy didn’t know any of the details—even her father didn’t trust her discretion that much—so no one but me and my father knew that Blaise was supposed to be the third party. No one would be suspicious if he decided to go home over the break, and once he was in Italy, he’d be out of harm’s way. Father would be upset not to have the three doors opened in unison, but by then, there wouldn’t be anything he could do about it. I’d be punished for not telling Blaise what he was supposed to do, but Blaise wouldn’t be hurt.” 

“Why would you do that, Draco?” I asked softly. “Why would you let your father hurt you just to protect me?”

Draco smiled at me sadly. “I love you,” he answered. “That matters more to me than _ten_ fathers—especially ten of _my_ father.” The smile faded and his face hardened again. “I’m eighteen years old, heir to one of the greatest fortunes in the world, and I’ve never had a single thing that was wholly and completely _mine_ , except for you. Everything was held over my head, subject to my father’s approval, ready to be taken away from me at a moment’s notice if I displeased him. Well, _fuck_ that. You’re _not_ under my father’s control, and I won’t let you be. I’ll be _damned_ if I let my father take you away from me. I’m getting you _out_ of this if it’s the last thing I do, and Lucius can rot in hell if he thinks I’ll accept any other outcome. I’ll send him there myself, if it comes to that.”

“Draco…” I said softly, not knowing what to say. What _is_ there to say when you realize that someone loves you that much? How do you reply? What words could I use to show him that he meant more than the world to me, as well? “I love you,” I said helplessly. It was all I could think to say.

A fire sparked off in Draco’s eyes at my words. I half expected him to pounce on me, to show me just how much he loved me back. Instead, he reached over with aching gentleness and picked up my hand from where it lay on the table. Lifting it up to his face, he placed a single soft kiss on the palm before resting his face against it. It wasn’t until I felt the wetness on my fingers that I realized he was crying.

“I love you, too,” he whispered. 

I looked over helplessly at Hermione who was watching us with a soft smile on her face and a hint of tears in her eyes. “What are we going to do?” I asked.

To my shock, her smile twisted into a surprisingly devious smirk. “Well, since you asked,” she answered coyly. “I just might have a plan.”

Chapter 13

‘Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the hallways and dormitories of Hogwarts, not a creature was stirring. Instead, we were all making a great deal of noise from where we were piled inside the Great Hall, where you could find every living creature in residence, and a sizeable portion of the dead, as well. Nearly Headless Nick was visibly disappointed that he would not be able to take place in the upcoming battle and was making up for it by telling harrowing ghost stories to the lower years who had stayed behind for the holidays.

There weren’t many younger years around, thankfully. Without ever actually saying anything outright, Dumbledore managed to get the message out that this, of all years, would be an excellent time for Hogwarts students to spend with their families, far away from school. Only three dozen or so students remained, and most of them were upper year members of Potter’s redoubtable Dumbledore’s Army. The only younger years present were students who literally had nowhere else to go. They were all Hufflepuff and Ravenclaws who had been orphaned by the latest Death Eater raids. Slytherins and Gryffindors had, not surprisingly, taken care of their own and seen to it that all orphans went home with friends. The only Slytherins in attendance were Pansy, Draco, and me, while the only non-seventh year Gryffindors were other-Weasley and the shutterbug Creepy brothers, following around Potter, as usual. 

Of course, students weren’t the only ones in the Great Hall. In addition, all the Hogwarts professors, past and present (with the exception, of course, of Quirrell, Lockhart, and Umbridge) were there, having secretly snuck back from their holiday plans so they could help, and two dozen Aurors were in attendance as well, including a cousin of Draco’s I had never met before whose hair was a very festive red and green, with what looked like tinsel coming out of her ears.

This was Hermione’s plan, explained to Dumbledore when she dragged us to his office after Draco’s confession, and perfected over the past week, during which Draco, Hermione, and me had been nearly inseparable, going over every step and every piece of the puzzle countless times. The Death Eaters expected to take on a handful of professors and a dozen or so students caught completely off guard. They were in for a rather unpleasant surprise.

At some point that night, Lucius would send his eagle to Draco to signal the beginning of the raid. The focus of the plan was to break into Gryffindor tower so they could get Potter (who I would probably have to start calling Harry soon, since Hermione was so bound and determined to make all of us get along). When the three emergency exits were opened, one group (including Voldemort himself who was breaking all protocol by going along on this one to _personally_ make sure that Potter died) would go directly to the Gryffindor tower, another would go to the professor’s wing, making sure that there was no interference from that quarter, while the third group would be expressly dispatched to keep Dumbledore occupied. 

According to Draco’s reports from his father, the Death Eaters, with their typical arrogance, expected, at most, token resistance from the few undertrained students staying in Gryffindor Tower for the holiday, and a handful of sleepy professors. Even the group attacking Dumbledore directly was confident in their victory since the headmaster would be greatly outnumbered and caught completely off-guard. When they actually entered, however, they’d find the professor’s hallway full of wide awake, fully prepared professors and half a dozen Aurors. Another half dozen Aurors along with Dumbledore himself would await them in Dumbledore’s office. A full dozen Aurors, along with the students who elected to fight, would face them in Gryffindor tower. 

That had, in fact, been the point of contention for most of the week. Initially, Dumbledore wanted to evacuate all students and leave the fight solely to Aurors and professors. Potter flatly refused. I was there in Dumbledore’s office when he faced down the headmaster, and no matter what Draco says, I’ll never be able to completely detest Potter ever again after the speech that he made. He insisted on his right to fight Voldemort in defense of the only real home he had ever known. He reminded Dumbledore that he would have to face down Voldemort sooner or later, and that he wasn’t going to hide in some safe house when he had the chance to _end_ this for once and for all. Eventually, Dumbledore gave in, and once Potter had permission to fight, the rest of his foolhardy friends insisted on joining in as well, bringing along their families as well. I never knew there were so many Weasleys. It seemed like a red head popped up everyone one looked. It was dizzying to say the least, but to their credit, they all seemed to be in excellent spirits as they bounced around the Great Hall. The twins, in particular, seemed bound and determined to make sure that everyone maintained the proper ‘Christmas spirit’ whether they liked it or not.

That had been one of Dumbledore’s conditions. The students could stay and fight, if they chose, but everyone would spend Christmas eve together, not huddling in the dormitories or professors quarters waiting with baited breath for the fighting to start, but joined together in the Great Hall with squishy purple sleeping bags that hadn’t been seen since third year when Sirius Black was on the loose, lots and lots of Christmassy food, and the largest Christmas tree I had ever seen in my life. When Lucius’ owl came, we’d go forth into battle. Until then, it was still Christmas, and Dumbledore wanted to make sure that no one forgot.

Of course, one of his ways of seeing to that was to stuff us all with sweets. I daresay I drank a lake of hot cocoa, and I lost count of the number of Christmas cookies after seven. Every time I looked around, an elf was pressed more food into my hand, Dumbledore’s orders. (I saw the ‘special’ trays going to the younger students. They were being dosed with sleeping potion. When the battle finally came, they’d stay in the Great Hall under a massive shielding spell while the rest of us went out to fight. Pansy had been dosed with the same thing in her lunchtime pumpkin juice. She was currently fast asleep in the Slytherin dormitory and wasn’t scheduled to wake until breakfast time.) 

Looking around at the rest of the room, I had to wonder if Dumbledore was drugging the rest of us, as well. I certainly never imagined that I’d be sitting by a Christmas tree with Draco and Gryffindor’s golden trio and _not_ worrying about the prospect of a fight. (Of course, it helped that I was in love with one of the golden three, and that she had her two friends completely under her thumb, terrified of the consequences she had warned them of if they dared to so much as _think_ of hexing Draco or me. Potter and Weasley, wise in the ways of Hermione, obeyed.) Potter and Weasley were cautious around me, and downright suspicious around Draco, but they kept their wands to themselves and were clearly on their best behavior, even though it was a visible strain.

Draco was on his best behavior as well, and I was starting to wonder if Hermione had him as thoroughly under her spell as she did the rest of us. Since his breakdown in the library, Draco’s attitude to Hermione had taken quite a change. Oh, he still loved arguing with her—I don’t think anything short of death would change that (and if he died first, I daresay he’d wait impatiently for her in the afterlife so they could argue again)—but the harsh edge of distrust between the two of them had vanished completely. Once they learned to trust each other, they worked so well together, it was almost creepy. I became more convinced every day that Hermione was just what was needed to complete both Draco and me. She fit us both so perfectly. Everything was better when she was around, even Potter and Weasley’s company.

I had to admit, they weren’t being too unbearable at the moment. They were wrapped up in a discussion of the Chudley Cannons (unquestionably the worst team in the league) which left Hermione free to chat with Draco and me. Or at least, free to _try_ and chat. The Weasley twins had gotten in the habit of setting of noisemakers every time they thought the Great Hall had lost some of its ‘festive air.’ It made attempts at conversation just a bit difficult.

“Hardly a ‘Silent Night’ is it?” Hermione asked with a smile.

Draco and I looked at each other, bewildered. “What?” I finally asked.

“ _Hardly a ‘Silent Night’_!” she shouted, thinking we hadn’t heard her. We had; we just didn’t understand.

“Why should it be a silent night?” Draco asked.

Hermione looked at him with an expression of shock. “It’s Christmas Eve!” she replied, as if the answer was obvious. “Like the Christmas carol, ‘Silent Night’?” she elaborated when it was obvious we were still confused.

Draco and I shrugged. “If it’s a Christmas carol, then it’s no wonder we don’t know it,” Draco answered.

“Don’t you know any Christmas carols?” she questioned, visibly surprised.

Draco and I looked at each other and shrugged. “Why would we?” Draco asked. “Jesus Christ doesn’t hold much weight with us, you know. I’ve known the spell to walk on water since I was twelve, and multiplying fish is an O.W.L. level spell: fifteen year olds can do it. Why should we be impressed that a man in his thirties could pull it off?”

I nodded my agreement. “Some of the more old-fashioned wizarding communities don’t celebrate Christmas at all,” I added. “The only reason we make such a to do about it at Hogwarts is because so many of the students are muggle raised, and they expect it. Besides, can you see Dumbledore turning down the chance to celebrate a holiday focusing on candy, presents, and goodwill towards man?”

“Good point,” Hermione conceded.

“So how does ‘Silent Night’ go?” Draco asked.

“You…you want me to sing it?” Hermione stammered, blushing slightly.

“No, Granger, I want you to train a choir of house-elves to sing it to us,” Draco retorted sarcastically. “Naturally, I want you to sing it. How else am I supposed to hear it? Or don’t you know how to sing?” he taunted, goading her into it.

“Of course I know how to sing!” she replied defensively. “I was in the children’s choir at our church until I came to Hogwarts! But I haven’t sung in front of people in years, and I never liked singing alone.”

“No one’s listening but us,” I argued. “Sing it quietly, and no one will even notice in all this racket.”

“Alright,” she conceded, taking a deep breath and closing her eyes. “Silent night,” she began quietly. “Holy night.” Her singing voice was soft and high and surprisingly sweet.

“All is calm, all is bright.” Looking over, I saw that Weasley and Potter’s conversation had halted as they turned to watch Hermione sing. Hermione, fortunately, didn’t notice, and continued singing.

“Round yon virgin mother and child.” Hermione’s voice grew a bit louder as her confidence grew, and a bit of a hush spread through the room as everyone stopped their conversations to listen. Even the Weasley twins stopped setting off their noisemakers, and the ones that were still active slowly died down. “Holy infant so tender and mild.”

“Sleep in heavenly peace. Sleep in heavenly peace.” Hermione’s voice trailed off softly on the last note, and her eyes fluttered open. She immediately turned bright red when she realized that the room had fallen silent to listen.

“Don’t stop,” Draco stated, breaking the silence. “It was nice. Keep going.”

Hermione started to shake her head but stopped when Dumbledore’s voice was heard from across the room. “Yes, Miss Granger,” the headmaster added. “Please keep going. I cannot think of a better way to celebrate Christmas than with some caroling.”

“Do you know ‘God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen?’” a small voice piped up near us. Looking over, I recognized a third year Ravenclaw. The girl had been very quiet throughout dinner, and I overheard Hermione telling Harry that her parents had been killed in the last Death Eater raid. This was her first Christmas without them. “It was my father’s favorite,” she continued softly.

I couldn’t hide a small smile at the look on Hermione’s face. I could tell she wasn’t comfortable with the idea of singing in front of everyone, but at the same time, she was far too soft-hearted to say no to the girl.

“God rest ye merry gentlemen,” she began in a voice that quavered a bit, “Let nothing ye dismay. Remember Christ our Savior was born on Christmas day.” She paused a bit before going on to the next line. We all looked over in surprise when a quiet tenor voice joined in for the next part.

“To save us all from Satan’s pow’r when we were gone astray.” Potter, always the valiant friend, had started singing to back Hermione up. Surprisingly, the boy had a decent voice. Hermione smiled over at him. He smiled back at her, and they continued.

“O tidings of comfort and joy, Comfort and joy, O tidings of comfort and joy.”

“From God our heavenly Father a blessed angel came,” Dumbledore chipped in from the other side of the room, starting off the second verse.

“And unto certain shepherds brought tidings of the same,” a few Aurors chimed in.

“How that in Bethlehem was born the Son of God by name,” they all sang together. “O tidings of comfort and joy, Comfort and joy, O tidings of comfort and joy.”

By the time they reached the next verse, half the room had joined in. Apparently, anyone even partially muggle raised knew the words, and only the purebloods sat in silence. Well, the purebloods and the third year Ravenclaw, who didn’t join in, but listened in silence, with a contented smile on her face.

“‘Fear not,’ then said the angel, ‘Let nothing ye affright. This day is born a Savior, Of virtue, power, and might. So frequently to vanquish all the friends of Satan quite,’ O tidings of comfort and joy, Comfort and joy, O tidings of comfort and joy.”

No wonder muggles enjoyed these carols so much, I mused. What a ‘comfort and joy’ indeed to think of a heavenly savior sent to earth to take care of all of our problems and lift away all of our burdens. And what irony that we’d sing about a savior the night before the battle between the wizarding world’s own, personal devil came to fight us all. I glanced over to Potter. He was the closest thing the wizarding world had to a savior. It was too much of a burden for anyone to have to carry on their shoulders. But he didn’t look burdened at the moment. He was smiling at Hermione, his best friend who had been there for him for so many years, and at the professors at the staff table (Hagrid had a rather overpowering bass and, apparently, a great fondness for Christmas carols), and at the room in general. I grinned a bit myself. With all these people helping our world’s savior, maybe we stood a chance at comfort and joy on Christmas day, after all.

“Now to the Lord sing praises, All ye within this place,” they concluded. “And with true love and brotherhood,” Potter and Weasley did the manly-punching-on-the-shoulder thing, “Each other now embrace, This holy tide of Christmas all others doth deface. O tidings of comfort and joy, Comfort and joy, O tidings of comfort and joy.”

Chapter 14

The Christmas carols lasted for hours, ranging from the surprisingly beautiful (I loved the melody of ‘What Child Is This’) to the patently ridiculous (including a version of ‘Deck the Halls’ with lyrics about burning down a school led, not surprisingly, by the Weasley twins while McGonagall watched them with patented disapproval, obviously wishing she still had jurisdiction over them to take off points). I’d heard singing in the Great Hall before, during the Yule Ball fourth year, and when the school song led off the opening of the year, but that was noise and chaos and everyone singing different things at once. I had never heard singing like this: everyone coming together (in four-part harmony at times) to practically raise the roof with their songs. It was the first time in my life that the night of December 24th actually felt a bit like Christmas.

The carols trailed off as the younger students started to fall asleep. Dumbledore lowered the torches to a low burn with a wave of his hand, and bid us all goodnight, advising us to get a bit of sleep, if we could. Draco and I found a cozy little corner and padded it with our sleeping bags and pillows. Arousal spread through my body at the look in Draco’s eyes as he pulled me up against him, and my eyes were already closing in anticipation of his kiss when I heard a small gasp that belonged unmistakably to Hermione.

I couldn’t help but smile at the sight of her when I looked up. She was blushing all the way up to her hairline and as far down as the modest neckline of her buttoned-up-to-the-top shirt would show. While she unquestionably approved of mine and Draco’s relationship, she was still caught off guard when we displayed it. I guess she had gotten accustomed to us being discreet. We certainly weren’t discreet anymore. Draco had been unabashedly affectionate with me for the past week. I suppose he figured that now that the kneazle was out of the cage with the only person he _hadn’t_ wanted to know about our relationship, there was no point in hiding it anymore. However, affectionate was one thing, and starting a kiss that would, unquestionably, have led to a most excellent shag was quite another. No wonder Hermione was embarrassed.

“I didn’t mean to disturb you,” she squeaked when she remembered to breathe again. “I was just too wired to sleep and I know the two of you are night owls, so I thought you’d still be up…I mean _awake_ , and I can see that you are but you…um…probably don’t want to be disturbed so I’ll just go. Now.”

I was so amused by her babbling (she looked so _adorable_ when she did it) that I almost forgot to respond to her attempt to get away, but fortunately, Draco’s reflexes were quicker than mine. He snatched hold of her arm and pulled her into the corner with us, drawing his wand with his other hand to cast a privacy bubble around the three of us in a mere matter of moments.

“I should go,” Hermione repeated. “The two of you probably want to be alone—of _course_ you want to be alone—so I’ll just let you—”

“Oh, do be quiet, Granger,” Draco commanded lazily. “You weren’t interrupting anything that can’t be postponed for a bit, in favor of the pleasure of your company. Besides,” he gave me a cheeky grin, “I rather fancy an audience now and again, don’t you, love?”

Hermione’s blush darkened, something I hadn’t thought was possible, and I couldn’t help but laugh. Hermione, pressed up against us by the limited space available in the privacy bubble turned her face into my shoulder, hiding against the soft wool of my jumper.

“He’s your boyfriend,” she complained in a muffled voice. “Make him stop teasing me.”

“No good appealing to him,” Draco insisted with a smirk. “He likes it when I tease.” Hermione responded by burrowing her face further into my chest. I couldn’t help but chuckle at the sight of her.

“Come on, Hermione,” I coaxed, wrapping an arm around her and shifting her body more comfortably against mine. “You can’t hide in there forever you know.”

“Why not?” she protested in the same muffled voice.

“Because if you hide, I won’t get to see your pretty face.”

She pulled away enough so that I could see her pouting expression. “If _you_ insist on teasing me, too, then I’ll just leave!” She tried to pull away as if to follow through on her threat, but she was tangled much too firmly in my arms, and I was nowhere near willing to let her go.

“Calm down, princess,” I said, as persuasively as I could, twisting her slightly so that her struggles left her burrowed even closer against me. “I apologize, okay?” She stopped struggling briefly, pulling back to check my expression for sincerity. It must have passed her test because she let me guide her head back to rest against my chest. Draco beckoned us closer to him, and I lifted Hermione so that I could pull her into position where she was leaning back against me, I was leaning back against Draco, and Draco was leaning back against the pillows we had used to pad our corner against the wall. Draco slid his arms forward to wrap around both of us, resting them around Hermione’s waist. With Hermione in my arms, resting against me, and Draco behind me, gently nuzzling my neck, I felt more content than I ever had in my life.

“This’s nice,” Draco mumbled around a mouthful of my neck, echoing my thoughts. Hermione purred a soft agreement and snuggled closer to me, rubbing against my body in a way that took my mind on a completely different path from ‘contentment’. Shifting my hips away from her a bit so that I wouldn’t offend her with my arousal, I found myself rubbing back against Draco, just to discover he was having a similar problem. 

“What do you think it’ll be like next Christmas?” Hermione asked, her voice soft and pensive. “Voldemort will be gone, school will be over, and we’ll be…where?”

“In bed?” Draco suggested, his voice teasing and hopeful at the same time.

“Oh _honestly_!” Hermione exclaimed, the effect of her words somewhat weakened by her soft giggle. “Is that all you think about?”

“Considering the company?” Draco replied. “Yes.”

One of my hands was buried in Hermione’s thick curls, playing with her impossibly soft hair, so I felt the blush rising up on her cheeks. “Ahem,” Hermione said in her best prunes-and-prisms voice. “ _Non_ -coupled person here, remember me? The two of you can discuss bedroom arrangements _after_ I go back to my sleeping bag.”

“But what if we want to include you in our bedroom arrangements?” Draco asked innocently. “Don’t you think you should be part of that conversation?”

“You’re hopeless,” Hermione groaned, turning against me again so that her side was aligned with my body and she could snuggle up in my arms. I barely managed to bite back a groan of my own, leaning my head back against Draco and staring at the ceiling while I tried to regain control over my libido.

“Look,” I said, nodding up toward the ceiling. “We have a visitor.”

A visitor indeed. A sprig of enchanted mistletoe had come to join us, resting right against the top of our privacy bubble.

Hermione sighed. “I guess that’s my cue to give the two of you some privacy.”

She tried to pull away, but Draco’s arms, which had wrapped more tightly around her when she cuddled up against me, refused to let her go. Neither, for that matter, did mine. I twisted my head to look back at Draco. He smiled, planted a soft kiss on my forehead, and nodded at me.

I had told Draco days before about how very much I liked the idea of him, Hermione, and me, together, and he had confessed that he liked the idea, as well. We had discussed different scenarios in which we could introduce the idea to Hermione and see how she felt about it. Using a sprig of mistletoe the night before the battle hadn’t occurred to either one of us, but Slytherins aren’t known for letting opportunities pass them by, and I could tell from the look on Draco’s face that he felt the same thing I did: this was right. This was the moment. This was the time to make Hermione ours.

“The mistletoe is over all three of us, Hermione,” I whispered in her ear, pleased at the way that it made her shiver. “In the interests of…fairness, I think that means that you’re not getting out of here without a kiss.”

“A…a kiss?” Hermione stammered, twisting to see my face.

I cradled her face in my hands, stroking the soft hair back out of the way. “Do you want to kiss me, Hermione?” I asked.

“Yes,” she whispered, with no hesitation.

“And me?” Draco added from behind me, his voice surprisingly nervous. “Do you want to kiss me, as well?”

Hermione blushed, but nodded. “Are the two of you sure that this is alri—” she started to ask, but I didn’t let her finish the question, claiming her lips with mine in a gentle kiss. Tentatively, she slid her warm hands up my chest, over my shoulders and around my neck, making me groan at the feeling of her warmth. To my surprise, she took advantage of the groan, slipping her tongue into my mouth.

There’s no way to know how long the kiss would have lasted if we had been left to our own devices. Forever, as far as I was concerned. Of course, Draco didn’t give us that option, separating us to take his own turn at Hermione’s sweet mouth.

Their kiss started out gentle, almost tentative, as if Draco was afraid that she would push him away, but it didn’t stay tentative for long. My bold little Gryffindor made her intentions very clear very quickly as she deepened the kiss, wrapping her arms around Draco and pulling him in closer. She looked so impossibly lovely in Draco’s arms. They made a striking couple under any circumstances, but they were beautiful when they came together like that. She kissed Draco with all that she had, nestling into his arms as if she had been created to fit there. I slid up against her back, pressing my body against hers and stroking my fingers up and down her torso, and Draco’s, and the lovely places where the two of them fit together. I loved them both so much. Finally, sheer lack of oxygen forced the two of them to pull apart, and from the gobsmacked look on Draco’s face and the triumphant grin on Hermione’s, I didn’t think I’d have too much trouble convincing them to let me show them just how much I adored them both.

I turned Hermione around so that she was back in my arms and seated in my lap and planted another warm kiss on her lips. “This won’t go any further than you want it to,” I promised her. She responded by kissing me again.

“I’ll tell you if I want to stop,” she replied when she pulled away, matching my serious expression for a moment. Then that gorgeous irrepressible grin broke out on her face. “But there’s no need for you to stop before then.” I laughed and gestured for Draco to join us. He complied, pressing himself against Hermione’s back and nuzzling her neck. She responded by wiggling back against him, reaching behind her to grab hold of his hands and bring them around in front of her, clasping them onto my hips.

“Carry on,” she ordered cheerfully. “Don’t mind me.”

Draco smirked, but followed her orders, leaning in over her shoulder to claim my lips with his. I kissed him back deeply, relishing the taste of him combined with the feel of Hermione’s body pressed against mine, and the sense of completion in being with both of them that was unlike anything I had ever felt before.

Draco pulled away from the kiss long enough for both of us to gulp in some air, and our eyes met over Hermione’s head. He reached out in front of him to gather her abundant hair in his hands, gathering it up out of the way. Once her neck was bared, he winked and me, and in unison, we each lowered our mouths to a side of her throat, lavishing her neck with wet, sucking kisses. She squirmed deliciously in my lap, rubbing up against my growing erection, making me groan. Apparently, she liked that reaction, since she ground her hips down, trying to make it happen again.

“Little vixen,” I heard Draco whisper in her ear as he pulled her shoulders back against his, leaving her deliciously writhing hips against mine, but claiming her torso as his playground, sliding his hands up her body to cup and caress her breasts. Her head flew back against his shoulder as she arched into his touch. Following his lead, I began unbuttoning her blouse, eager to give her breasts some intimate attention from me, as well. Her eyes, clouded with lust, cracked open to watch the movements of my hands with a lazy smile. Continuing to squirm against both of us, she put her hands into play by sliding them up my chest, underneath my jumper to caress the skin underneath.

I followed her cue and pulled off the jumper and the shirt underneath as well. Draco seemed to think that getting topless was an excellent idea, because he quickly tugged Hermione’s shirt out of the way and pulled off his own shirt as well. I released the front catch on Hermione’s bra and lowered my head right away so that I could play with my new toys. I had been too eager to taste her breasts to take the time to view them properly first, but from the way that the sweet little morsels felt in my mouth and my hand, I could tell that they were every bit as soft and perfect as I had dreamed.

Draco grumbled a bit about how stingy I was with sharing _our_ toys, but I ignored him, and he soon stopped angling for a go at her breasts, choosing to play with her tummy instead, unfastening the fly of her jeans and slipping his hand into the front, underneath the waistline of her panties, to tickle her belly with smooth, concentric circles sliding their way lower and lower inside her panties while he worked on creating a love bite on her neck approximately the size and shape of a regulation-standard Quidditch pitch.

Hermione, never one to sit idly by while others were hard at work, joined in as well, running her hands eagerly over our bare chests, studiously unfastening our belts and flies (to the enormous relief of my erection which felt certain it had bruised itself, straining against the zipper of my pants) and running her lips over every square inch of flesh she could reach. When her hands reached down, in perfect synchronicity, to grasp both erections through our tented boxers, I knew that I couldn’t take anymore. Reluctantly pulling myself away from her breasts, I raised my head enough to look her in the eye.

“It’s alright if you don’t want to go any further,” I prefaced, reassuring her as best I could, “but if you’re not ready for more than this, then we might have to stop now.”

“I don’t want to stop,” she replied, very softly. “Please, I…I don’t want to stop.”

Leaning up, I kissed her again. “Then we won’t stop,” I promised. “Unless you ask us to.”

She nodded, pushing me back away from her slightly. I was confused, wondering if she had changed her mind and really _did_ want to stop, when she pushed all doubts out of my mind by kicking off her shoes and wiggling out of her jeans, panties, and socks. My eyes slammed shut and I forced myself to picture every arousal-killing image I could manufacture, just to keep from cumming immediately at the sight of her naked in Draco’s arms. Gods, she was gorgeous.

I finally opened my eyes when I thought I had regained control, but one look at the sight in front of me was nearly enough to shatter my fragile grip. Draco, pleased with the lack of clothing in his way, had returned to his previous activities with her body while my eyes were shut. As his lips devoured her neck, his fingers slid in and out of her visibly wet and slippery hole. She was squirming in his arms, her breath coming in short pants, and as I watched, frozen in place, her climax hit.

I had reached the limits of my endurance. Tearing off what remained of my clothes, I dove on top of her, pinning her body between Draco’s and mine. She was still shaking and breathless from the force of her orgasm, but she lifted an arm around my neck, (using the other arm to reach for Draco’s hand which slid immediately into hers,) and wrapped her legs carefully around my waist. Draco and I adjusted her until she was in the best position that we could find, nestled tightly between the two of us.

“Are you ready?” I whispered in her ear, covering the area in kisses while I waited for her response.

“I’m ready,” she replied, tightening her legs around my waist to bring my pelvis against hers again. That was all the consent I needed. Reaching down to position the tip of my erection against her opening, I slid fully inside with one, hard thrust.

I wasn’t really surprised to feel the barrier inside her tearing away. Logically, I knew that she was a virgin, and that I was the first to ever be inside her like that. But logic had no control over the burst of possessiveness and pure, fierce love I felt as I joined the two of us together and made her mine.

Every muscle in her seemed to clench at the unaccustomed pain, and if the way that she tightened her grip on me was any indication, she must have been squeezing Draco’s hand hard enough to hurt, but his only response was to lift the hand to his lips, nuzzling it with soft kisses while he whispered encouragements to her, telling her how beautiful she was, how incredible, and how wonderful we were both going to make her feel for letting us be the ones to be with her in this way. Sliding his other hand between our bodies, his clever fingers soon found the place where we were joined. Rubbing against the spots he had already learned she liked best, he coaxed her body to respond to both of us, continuing his litany of encouragement and praise as her body started to relax and move against mine. Once I was convinced she wasn’t in pain anymore, I began moving, sliding carefully in and out of her. 

It didn’t seem possible that any woman could feel that good. Certainly, no woman had ever felt like that before. I was very grateful that Draco was there to see to Hermione’s pleasure, because I was so lost in my own, I don’t know if I would have been able to make it as good for her as it needed to be. 

Hermione seemed to feel the same gratitude to Draco because she reached behind her to release his erection from the front of his boxers. Planting a kiss on my lips, she reached for my hand, which I willingly gave to her. (At that moment, I would have given her anything she asked for.) She brought both of our hands back to Draco’s erection, and guided me to clasp my hand over hers.

“Show me how he likes to be touched,” she whispered. I groaned as the mere thought of what we were doing made me even harder, but eagerly obeyed. Guiding her hand up and down, I taught her the rhythm and the pressure that Draco enjoyed, and felt a smug sort of satisfaction when he started gasping like a drowning man, like the rest of us. The sound of his pleasure was the perfect addition to increase my own. Apparently, Hermione agreed, because I felt her muscles start to tighten around me and I could tell she was moments away from orgasm.

“Harder,” she pleaded. “Don’t hold back.”

With such explicit permission, how could I refuse? I drove into her with everything I had, lining up my thrusts to give maximum friction against her clit every time I buried myself inside her. When I heard her moan my name as her orgasm hit, I couldn’t hold back any longer, and followed her over the edge.

For several long moments, I wasn’t aware of anything, but gradually reality intruded again, ushered in by the sound of Draco’s moans. Apparently, Hermione had kept up her attentions to Draco’s erection. From the sound of his voice, I could tell he was close.

“Sit up, love,” Hermione whispered in my ear. I groaned at the thought of moving ever again, but obeyed, nonetheless. If she had told me to stand up and sing ‘I’m a little teapot’ to everyone in the Great Hall, I’d have done it. When I lifted my weight off her body, she shifted her position, lifting her body up a bit so it hovered slightly over Draco’s, and using her hand on Draco’s cock to align it with her entrance.

“Hermione, no,” Draco tried to protest. “You must be sore; you don’t have to…oh sweet _Jesus_ ,” he moaned as she slid her body down on to his. Giving me a wicked little wink and grin, she held her arms out for me, beckoning me closer. Naturally, I obeyed, letting her pull me into another series of dizzying kisses while she rode Draco to completion. He came inside her with a shuddering gasp of her name, and the three of us stilled, clinging to each other and relishing the perfection of the moment.

Chapter 15

Naturally in this, the most perfect moment of my life, Lucius had to find a way to come along and spoil it. Draco had just cast the cleansing charm and the three of us were settling down for a nice cuddle when that damnable bird from Malfoy manor flew into the Great Hall, bringing with it Lucius’ message.

Draco opened the message mostly out of instinct, but it wasn’t really necessary. We all knew what the message said. It said that it was time. With a little sigh of what I liked to think was regret, Hermione pulled herself out of our arms and started sorting through the pile of clothes, handing the pieces of our wardrobes back to us so that we could all get dressed. When we were decent again, Hermione and I tidied up our little nest to leave no visible sign of our activities while Draco went to alert Dumbledore.

The signal went out over our rings, alerting everyone to wakefulness and attention. The rings were the ace up our collective sleeves. Distributed to everyone who would be fighting in the battle that day, the rings had been charmed by Professor Flitwick himself to have a very special property. Invisibility.

Once the spell was activated, every person who wore one of the rings was rendered invisible to everyone who _wasn’t_ wearing a ring. Thanks to the ring on my finger, I could see everyone in the room. Sure, they looked a bit blue-tinted and slightly glowy, but they were still perfectly visible. I knew, however, that to anyone who wasn’t wearing one of the rings, the room would appear practically empty. It was an enormous tactical breakthrough. We had all the advantage of invisibility to use against our enemy, but none of the disadvantage of accidental friendly fire to worry about, or the chance of tripping over each other that we’d have to face if we were all truly invisible.

The charm was the greatest achievement of Professor Flitwick’s career, and would have been enough, if documented to earn him fame and recognition such as few ever reached in his field. But he had voluntarily chosen to conceal the spell, destroying all records of it once the rings had been properly charmed, so that the powerful magic would never be useable by Voldemort and his kind. Staring at the ring on my finger (and the load of blue-tinted people surrounding me, ready to fight to the death if necessary) I felt an enormous sense of pride in being part of a group willing to give so selflessly and devoted for the interests of mankind. I grinned a bit to myself. Falling in love with a Gryffindor had turned me into a disgrace of a Slytherin. My behavior had become brave, self-sacrificing, unshakably loyal, and almost entirely unmotivated by personal gain. Sneaking a glance over at the lovely little Gryffindor who had stolen my heart, and the blond haired Slytherin she had brought along for the ride as well, I had to laugh a bit at the irony that acting like a damn fool Gryffindor was making me happier than I had ever been.

Dumbledore gave quite a stirring little speech to the troops, reiterating pretty much exactly what I had been feeling. He told us that with the courage, devotion, loyalty, and determination that we had amassed for our cause, he didn’t see any way in which we could lose. Wishing all of us luck, he sent us off to our positions. The students (which the exception of the younger years, of course) were sent off to the Gryffindor dormitories along with their contingent of Aurors, while the professors headed off to their quarters with the Aurors of their own. Hermione lagged behind the crowd for a moment to say a brief goodbye to Draco and to me where we stood with Dumbledore, ready to embark on our own part of the adventure.

“Be careful,” she whispered to each of us, following her words up with a tight hug and a brief, but fervent, kiss. The last thing I heard before she disappeared into the hallway was Potter and Weasley giving her hell about those kisses…and her giving them hell for acting like overprotective parents in return. When I couldn’t hear her voice anymore, I turned back to face Draco and Dumbledore.

“You know what you are to do?” Dumbledore asked us gently. We nodded. Our instructions were clear. We were to go to the entrances the Death Eaters had selected, let them in, and lead them straight into the awaiting trap. Dumbledore, with the Polyjuice Snape had provided and the hair he had plucked from Pansy’s head, would take her role and lead the group including her father to Dumbledore’s office. I myself would lead the second group to the professor’s quarters. Draco would be leading the group including his father and Voldemort himself to the Gryffindor tower.

“Gentlemen, let me remind you, you still have a chance to change your mind. There is enough Polyjuice Potion for the professors or Aurors to take your places. You’ve done your part by preparing us for this engagement, and I’m certain no one will think any less of you if you choose not to participate directly.”

Dumbledore had been pushing this option from the beginning, but Draco and I had been adamant that we be allowed to play our own roles. This was the part we had earned in the whole royal mess of it, and we weren’t about to give it up.

“We understand sir,” Draco replied. “But we haven’t changed our minds. We’re ready.”

“Then I’ll wish you both Godspeed, gentlemen, and look forward to congratulating you for your successful part in this encounter at our victory breakfast.” He shook our hands before swallowing down his vial of Polyjuice. When he had transformed into Pansy, he threw us both a quick wink before strolling away in a disturbingly accurate copy of Pansy’s hip-wiggling walk. When the door closed behind him, Draco and I shook the upsetting image from our heads and turned to face each other.

“This is it,” I said.

He smiled. “I love you.”

“It’ll all be over soon,” I added.

His smile widened. “I still love you.”

Unable to stop myself, I grinned back. “I love you, too.” I pulled him into a quick kiss. “And once this is over, we can celebrate in bed with our beautiful little witch while I show you both how much.”

He grinned back. “Now there’s a reason to get started. Let’s go.”

We exited the Great Hall together in silence, with our hands joined, and walked down the hall together until we reached the place where our paths parted. He held on to my hand as long as he could before squeezing it hard and releasing it. Neither of us said a word as we went our separate ways.

I found the secret entrance without any difficulty, and pushed the knob to open it, descending down into the tunnel that it revealed and through to the exit on the other side. The knob on that door responded instantly to my touch and swung open. The Death Eaters, masked and ready, were standing as expecting, just outside.

“Zabini?” a rough voice that was, thankfully, completely unfamiliar to me asked from behind one of the masks. “Where are you?”

I let out a small internal sigh of relief that the ring was working properly. I hadn’t doubted that it would, but…it was nice to have proof that my loved ones were as safe as our little magic trick could make them.

“I’m right here,” I answered. “The potion has a bit to go before it wears off. This way.”

Alerted by sound to my location, the gruff-voiced man clasped a hand onto my shoulder. “Wouldn’t want to lose track of you now, would I, boy?” he asked, gripping my shoulder hard enough to hurt. “Need to keep an eye on you so that you can get your reward when the time comes. Now lead the way.”

Fighting the urge to shiver, I turned toward the tunnel and led the Death Eaters through to the other side. They followed me in silence until we reached Hogwarts’ hallways. 

“This is it!” one of the Death Eaters from the back stated eagerly and far too loudly as they shuffled in from the tunnel. “I can hardly believe it!”

I winced at the sound of the voice, grateful that no one could see me. That was a voice I _did_ recognize. I hadn’t known that Leon Shipley, a Slytherin less than a year out of Hogwarts, had joined the Death Eaters. It made it harder when I had a face to put with a mask. Shipley had always been something of a bully, and the thought of standing up to him, fighting against him, was something I would normally never have dared. 

“Maybe you’d like to run up to the Quidditch pitch and tell everyone from the announcer’s box just how glad we are to be here,” the man gripping my shoulder stated snidely, though in a cautiously quiet voice. “Or don’t you understand the idea of a _surprise attack_?”

Shipley wisely fell silent. “Lead on, boy,” the man commanded, digging his fingers more firmly into my shoulder.

I lead the way, wincing at the echoing sound my shoes made against the hallway in the otherwise complete silence surrounding us. Apparently, the man noticed as well.

“Quiet, you fool! Just because _you’re_ invisible doesn’t mean the rest of us are! Do you want to give us away?”

“Too late,” an amused voice announced from beside us. I sighed with relief as the Death Eater, shocked at the voice coming out of nowhere released my shoulder. One of the Weasleys who I thought I had heard referred to as Bill winked at me as I pulled away.

“Who’s there?” the Death Eater asked, sounding more annoyed than nervous, obvious thinking this was some kind of prank.

“Well,” Weasley drawled, circling around the man to keep him from getting a lock on his location, “there’s me.”

“And me,” one of the Aurors announced from his position in the corner.

“And me,” Professor Sinistra added, pulling out her wand.

“And me,” Professor Snape hissed in the man’s ear. 

“S-snape?” the man whispered, no longer sounding tough or confident. Instead, he sounded shaky and nervous. “What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be in Spain!”

“Surprise,” Snape replied sarcastically. “Petrificus Totalus.” With a snap and a thud, the man fell stiffly to the ground. For a moment, everyone on both sides just stood there and stared. Then, the battle began.

I got away as soon as I could. The professors and the Aurors had things well under control. They were picking off the Death Eaters like flies, and quite visibly didn’t need my assistance. I couldn’t stay down there any longer while I knew that Draco and Hermione might be in danger up in the Gryffindor tower.

I had no way of knowing just how good my timing would be. The battle in the tower was raging full-on by the time I arrived. Potter was dueling with Voldemort in the corner of the room, but that was far from the only action taking place. The Death Eaters had sent a larger force to the tower than we had expected, and the crowded space meant that every spell that was dodged ended up hitting _someone_ , whether friend or foe. My brilliant Hermione had obviously taken the proper measure of the scene for instead of firing aggressive or defensive spells at Death Eaters, she concentrated on disarming them before freezing them in place. She already had her own small pile of them around her, wandless, petrified, and neatly bound with magical restraints, and I could see others in the room starting to follow her example. I couldn’t help but smile at the sight of her.

The smile quickly disappeared when I caught sight of Draco. Lucius had, apparently, caught hold of his son in spite of the invisibility spell. It’s possible that Lucius put together the clues and figured out that Draco was to blame for the failure of his grand plan. It’s also possible that Lucius was simply taking out his frustrations on Draco without really caring whether or not the situation was, in fact, Draco’s fault, the way that he always did. But whatever the reason, he had his hands wrapped around Draco’s neck, preventing him from breathing, much less casting a spell in his own defense, and was slowly choking him to death.

A wave of red-hot anger washed over me and took hold of me completely. All I could see was _Lucius_ being strangled like that, being trapped and caged and crushed by something that he couldn’t control. I could picture it so clearly, so perfectly.

I wasn’t aware of the wand in my hand pointing in their direction. I wasn’t aware of my mouth opening to shout out the words. And no matter how hard I try, I can’t for the life of me remember what words I said as I pointed the wand in the direction of my lover and his murderous father, but whatever it was, the results were unmistakable.

Lucius didn’t have a chance to react as the tapestry behind him came, seemingly, to life, turning into a massive, powerful, greedy batch of Devil’s Snare, grabbing hold of him and crushing him in its embrace. He reacted quickly enough once the snare had him in its grasp (releasing Draco who immediately stepped out of range) but by then it was too late. The snare didn’t kill him, but it grabbed hold of him far too tightly for him to be able to get away, squeezing him slowly, and tightening its crushing hold just a fraction more every time he tried to struggle away.

Draco’s face lit up as he spotted me and he immediately began pushing his way across the room to my side, stunning two Death Eaters on the way who were stupid enough to be obstacles in his path to me.

“My hero!” he said with melodramatic flair, the effect of which was somewhat ruined by the enormous grin on his face.

“I love you,” I replied.

“Love you, too,” he answered. “It’s almost over. Look.”

He pointed in the direction of Voldemort and Potter, and I saw that he was right. The combatants were visibly tired from the effects of battling each other, and I could tell that the fight wouldn’t last much longer. The sun was starting to rise, visible through the windows of the tower, and it illuminated, to my eyes, at least, Voldemort in his dark clothes and Death Eater’s mask and Potter, who with the brightening effect of the ring, seemed to be glowing.

As I watched, their wands locked. I had heard about brother wands before, but I had never known that it looked like this. Two lines of magic headed directly for each other, crashing together in the middle and bringing the combatants literally off the floor with the force of their magic. I watched, breathless, squeezing tightly to Draco’s hand as I waited to see how it would end. I didn’t have long to wait.

“Accio wand!” a clear, unmistakable voice called out from the corner. As abruptly as that, the light show ended as Voldemort’s wand sailed into Hermione’s hand, causing Voldemort to land on the floor with a thud, staring rather stupidly in Hermione’s direction, wondering what had just happened. I suppose it never occurred to him that anyone would dare to interfere in his duel. The shock cost him several precious moments while he stood immobile. Hermione took advantage of his surprise.

“Harry!” she called out, making her equally dumbfounded friend turn his head to face her. “Here!” she shouted, casting a banishing spell that sent Voldemort’s wand straight into Potter’s hand. “End it!” she ordered. Voldemort had recovered by now from his surprise and had pulled a wicked looking knife out from somewhere in his robes. He was charging toward Potter with it, obviously ready to kill, when Potter snapped up both wands in his hands and shouted out what he later said was nothing more and nothing less than the first thing to come into his head in his automatic response to doing whatever Hermione said. End it, she had commanded him. So he did.

“Finite Incantatem!”

A flash of golden light broke out from both the wands, slamming into Voldemort with the force of a rogue bludger, knocking him off his feet. All of us, Death Eaters and students alike, watched in absolute shock as the magic broke over the wizard known as Voldemort, doing what _no one_ had ever expected to see.

He melted. Not his flesh or his skin or anything physical about him, but his _magic_ , the strength and power that allowed him to terrorize our society seemed to leak out of him. The air was full of energy glowing in the sunlight, but Voldemort, who was always described as having power crackling at his very fingertips, could do nothing but stand there dumbfounded as power dribbled off of him. It was like watching layers of enchantment strip away, especially when all the Death Eaters in the room fell to the floor, screaming in pain as the magic maintaining the Dark Marks on their arms faded away. When it was over and done with, shouting and all, Potter stood there staring down…an old, frail man, wearing robes far too large for his shriveled frame, and an expression of absolute shock as he tried to channel the power inside him and found that it had gone.

It was an act that scholars would argue about for years to come. Was it sheer chance that Potter had shouted that particular spell while holding Voldemort’s wand, the only wand in the world capable of undoing the elaborate enchantments its owner had wrought? Was it an accident that The Boy Who Lived, the one hand-picked by fate to be the end of Voldemort, should happen to be the owner of the brother wand and, therefore, the only person capable of wielding Voldemort’s weapon and having it respond? Was it fate? Was it destiny? Was it luck? …Given the results, did it matter?

“Petrificus totalus,” a clear voice echoed out, breaking the silence. We all turned to see Hermione standing calmly, wand in hand, looking cool and collected as she petrified the Dark Lord. Summoning his frozen form across the room to join the rest of the Death Eaters she had subdued, she cast the same spell on him as she had on them, binding him in magical restraints. With that done, she took a glance around the room, saw all the Death Eaters either passed out from pain or whimpering pitifully from the floor, and slipped her wand into its holster.

“Well, thank heavens that’s done,” she said lightly. “Can we have breakfast now?”

Weasley responded with a war whoop that seemed to literally shake the room and raced across the room to grab Hermione in a bear hug, picking her up and swinging her around. That seemed to set off some sort of strange, Gryffindorian signal that everyone one else in the room appeared to understand as they all immediately began jumping up and down, hugging everyone around them fiercely (except for the Death Eaters, of course) and screaming out wordless yells of victory. Even the Aurors, businesslike and thorough as one would expect from such professionals, couldn’t hide their grins as they went around making sure all the Death Eaters (Lucius included, once they managed to pry his body, unconscious from the pain of the Dark Mark disappearing, away from the Devil’s Snare) were properly restrained and ready to be sent to Azkaban.

A tug on my hand reminded me that it was still holding on to Draco. I turned to face him with an expression of shock on my face.

“It’s over,” I stated, half expecting him to contradict me.

“Yes,” he answered. “It is.”

Chapter 16

The next few hours went by in something of a daze. When all the Death Eaters had dropped in pain from the melting of their Dark Marks, everyone fighting with the professors or with Dumbledore pretty much knew that the battle was over. Dumbledore tried to lead us all into the Great Hall for a celebratory breakfast, but Madam Pomfrey put her foot down, insisting that everyone go through the hospital wing to be checked for any traces of hexes before they were allowed to go to breakfast. I’ll admit, it was fun watching the tough-seeming Aurors balk as timidly as kittens when she glared at them and told them to show some _real_ courage and drink their potions and for Merlin’s sake to stop squirming, or they’d do more damage to sore muscles and tender injuries.

I was starving by the time Draco and I were finally cleared to go down to breakfast. I was so hungry, in fact, that I was in the middle of scarfing down a huge pile of pancakes (shaped, supposedly, in the image of Harry Potter by the grateful and doting house elves, led by Dobby) before I noticed Hermione shyly edging her way over to our table.

I doubt she found my grin terribly charming, filled as it was with bits of Potter-shaped pancake, but it didn’t seem to scare her off as she seated herself timidly across next to Draco and across from me at the Slytherin table.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t get to you sooner,” she stated contritely. “I tried—honestly, I did—but everyone had so many questions, and I just couldn’t get away.”

“Of course they had questions!” I replied, once I had, momentarily, finished chewing and swallowing. “You’re a hero, every bit as much as Potter, in my opinion.”

Hermione blushed and fiddled with the silver service on the table. I mentally resolved to take on as my next task teaching Hermione how to take compliments. It occurred to me that we could _both_ get some fun out of practicing while I praised every inch of her body naked in my bed. Or Draco’s bed. Or her bed in what rumor had it was a lovely Head Girl’s room. Yes, that would work quite nicely.

“I just wanted to come over here and say congratulations,” she stated, looking up and giving Draco a weak smile.

“Thanks,” he replied nonchalantly, polishing off another croissant with honey—his favorite. “What exactly are you congratulating me for?”

“What?” Hermione asked distractedly, obviously thrown from her track of thought by the sight of Draco licking the traces of honey off of his fingers. I grinned a bit. That sight had distracted me more times than I could count. The things that Draco could do with a bit of honey and that wicked tongue of his were positively sinful. Mentally, I added a pot of honey to my mental image of bedtime games with Draco and Hermione.

“I…I mean, congratulations to both of you,” she flashed a brief, pained smile in my direction as well, “on how well you took care of Lucius.” She turned to face me again and this smile was more sincere. “The Devil’s Snare spell was really brilliant, you know. I was very impressed.”

I grinned back at her. “All thanks to you, love. I was lucky to have such a good teacher.”

Her smile faded a bit as she turned slightly so she could direct her statements to Draco and to me at the same time.

“I know that this makes things easier for both of you, now that you no longer have to worry about Lucius. I’m sure it’ll be a relief to be able to be completely open about your relationship without having to worry about any repercussions. I wanted to congratulate you about that, too.”

“I wouldn’t say _no_ repercussions,” Draco replied, chewing thoughtfully on a piece of scrambled egg. “Yes, Lucius is out of the way, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t _anyone_ left who might make trouble about our relationship.”

Hermione’s frowned in confusion. “The two of you are heroes now, after what you’ve done. I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if you ended up with an Order of Merlin, each. I can’t imagine who would give you any trouble now. Who’s left to get in the way?”

Draco snorted. “You don’t think your friends will have a thing or two to say about you getting involved with not just _one_ Slytherin, but _two_?”

“Especially since one of the Slytherins is you, love,” I reminded Draco, who bunged a bit of egg at me for my pains.

“Yes, dearest, thank you _so_ much for reminding me that Hermione’s friends loathe me as much as I despise them. It makes me feel so warm and _comfortable_ knowing that the Boy Who Just Won’t Stop Living will be bumping me up to the top of his Must Die Soon and Painfully list.”

“But why? What? Involved with two Slytherins? You don’t mean you…”

Draco raised a single eyebrow. “Well, naturally I mean us. Are there any _other_ Slytherins you’re involved with, darling? Because if so, I really feel you should let us know about them now. Honestly is very important in a relationship, they tell me.”

“Relationship?” Hermione repeated in a whisper.

“Yes, Granger, relationship. Four syllable word referring to an acknowledged connection between two or more persons.” He turned to look at me, frowning slightly. “Do you think we should send her back to Madam Pomfrey? She seems rather confused.”

Abandoning my plateful of food on the conviction that Hermione was more important than eating (especially since I had already had three servings of pancakes and wasn’t certain I could handle any more without running the risk of making myself sick), I crossed around to the other side of the table, seating myself next to Hermione to sandwich her between Draco and myself.

“Hermione, what is it?” I asked, taking hold of her hand. “What’s wrong?”

“I didn’t know you wanted a relationship with me,” she whispered, her voice sounding like she was nearly on the verge of tears. Gone was the confident, collected witch who had brought about Voldemort’s downfall just that morning, and in her place was a shy, nervous, painfully uncertain girl who was caught utterly off-guard by the unforeseen challenge of being loved.

“Hermione, last night, we showed you how much we wanted you to be with us.”

“I wasn’t going to hold you to it!” she protested. “I knew it was just one of those things.”

“One of those things?” Draco asked.

“Yes!” she replied, nodding emphatically. “One of those, we-might-all-die-in-the-morning-so-let’s-have-a-pleasant-time-of-it-tonight things.”

Draco and I exchanged a look over Hermione’s shoulder.

“Is that what you wanted it to be?” Draco asked quietly, a few moments later.

Hermione suddenly found her fingernails very interesting. “N-no,” she admitted. “But I didn’t want to ask for more than you were willing to give. Last night was…amazing…and even if that’s all that it was—just one night—I could never regret it.”

“It was amazing,” I agreed. “But it wasn’t just one night.”

“It wasn’t?” she asked, finally daring to look up.

“It was one of those all-the-nights-for-the-rest-of-our-lives-or-as-long-as-you’ll-have-us things,” Draco elaborated. Suddenly he was the one who couldn’t quite seem to meet her eyes. “That is, if you want it to be.”

“Yes,” she answered quickly, almost cutting off his words in her eagerness to respond. “Not to interrupt,” she apologized politely, “but yes. Very much yes. A…lifetime of yes. Or as long as you’ll have me.”

I squeezed her hand gently, and noticed Draco taking hold of her other hand, repeating the action. She smiled softly and squeezed both of our hands back.

“I’ve been thinking about your puzzle piece theory,” I stated conversationally, using my free hand to trace patterns over where our fingers were joined. “I think it makes a lot of sense. Especially if you think of a…three-piece puzzle, where all three pieces have to lock together to be complete.”

“I think you’re right,” she replied quietly, sniffing a bit to hold back what looked suspiciously like tears swimming in her eyes. “And I also think I like three-piece puzzles quite a bit.”

“This talk of puzzles has reminded me,” Draco stated abruptly. “It’s Christmas morning.”

Hermione and I exchanged confused glances, trying to figure out what it was that Draco was getting at.

“Yes,” I answered slowly. “It is.”

Draco turned to Hermione and smiled brightly, looking endearing like a five year old with some of his hair flopping onto his forehead. “I’m ready for my present.”

Hermione’s eyes widened. “Oh! Right. Well, the gift I got you is up in my room, but I can get it for you after breakfa—”

“Not that present,” Draco interrupted. “My other present.”

When Hermione’s only response was to look at him in perplexed confusion, Draco decided to clear the matter up by leaning forward and claiming her mouth. She looked appropriately dazed and speechless when he finally pulled away and Draco smirked a bit in triumph before speaking.

“You’re my present,” he stated. “My Christmas present to keep. Just like I’m your Christmas present. And since I’ve always been a bit impatient when it comes to presents,” I snorted at that, and Draco stuck his tongue out at me. “Anyway, as I was _saying_ , since I’ve always been just a _bit_ impatient when it comes to presents, I think I’m ready to take this down to the dormitories so I can unwrap mine.

“Unwrap?” Hermione stated questioningly. Draco smirked and ran his eyes slowly and deliberately up and down her body. She immediately broke into a blush. “Right,” she said. “Unwrap.”

“You know,” I reminded her, “Draco and I are the only male Slytherins here for the rest of Christmas break. We could spend the rest of the day in our dormitory…unwrapping…our presents till the sun goes down, and no one would be any the wiser.

Hermione gulped audibly. “Merry Christmas to all,” she replied a few moments later. “And to all a good night.”

THE END

**Author's Note:**

> Original prompt:  
> 62\. Name/Pen Name: Kyra  
> Pairing of the fic you want: D/Hr/B  
> Rating(s) of the fic you want: PG13-NC17  
> 3 - 5 Things you want your gift to include:  
> 1\. Set at Hogwarts, 7th year, Christmas holidays. Most of the students have gone home, leaving only 2-3 dozen there. Among those present must be Draco and Hermione (duh), Blaise, Pansy, Harry and Ron.  
> 2\. There must be a close, "almost-brothers" bond between Draco and Blaise, such as exists between Harry and Ron. It can be written as a threesome, or a love triangle in which one of the loves is unrequited- that's your decision.  
> 3\. Over the holidays, the school comes under siege by Death Eaters. Either Draco or Blaise, or both, are expected by their families to assist the invaders from within the school. Whether they do so or not, and their motivations for their actions- again, your decision.  
> 4\. Despite the bleak situation they find themselves in, those within the school find means, somehow, to keep the Christmas spirit alive and even celebrate- how? Up to you.  
> 5\. This situation should allow for plenty of soul-searching, drama and angst!  
> What you don’t want your gift to include: Oh, the usual- a Hermione who's changed over the summer into a walking Barbie doll, or a Draco who's secretly loved her since first year and is suddenly spouting Shakespearean sonnets to her loveliness- let's keep things reasonably in character, at least to begin with; certainly a romance can progress here, that's the point, but I don't think Draco would ever be the type to wear his heart on his sleeve, no matter how intense his feelings are beneath the surface. I really don't know much about Blaise, so I'm not going to make any demands on him at all. Um... no history of child abuse for either/any of the main characters, please. Happy ending. That's about it!


End file.
